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CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 
| LEANDER S. KEYSER, D.D. 


A Fi 


CONTENDING FOR 
THE RAT YD EH 


Essays in Constructive Criticism 
and Positive Apologetics 


BY/ 


LEANDER S. KEYSER, D.D. 


PROFESSOR OF SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY IN HAMMA DIVINITY SCHOOL, 
WITTENBERG COLLEGE, SPRINGFIELD, OHIO 


AUTHOR OF “‘A SYSTEM OF NATURAL THEISM, “‘A SYSTEM 
OF GENERAL ETHICS,” “THE RATIONAL TEST,” 
“ELECTION AND CONVERSION, “IN THE 
REDEEMER’S FOOTSTEPS, “IN THE 
APOSTLES’ FOOTSTEPS,” ETC. 


NEW YORK 
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT, 1920, 
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 


PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 


TO ALL 


TRUE EVANGELICAL BELIEVERS 


WHO STAND FIRMLY AND SINCERELY FOR THE FAITH 
ONCE FOR ALL DELIVERED UNTO THE SAINTS 


THIS BOOK IS 


AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED 


JUST A WORD HERE 


The author desires to make grateful acknowledgment 
to the publishers of the following theological magazines 
for the privilege of reprinting in the present form the 
various articles that first appeared in their columns: The 
Lutheran Quarterly, Gettysburg, Pa.; The Lutheran Church 
Review, Philadelphia, Pa.; The Theological Monthly, 
Columbus, Ohio; The Biblical Review, New York, Navn 

L. 8. K. 
Hamma Divinity School, 
Wittenberg College, 
Springfield, Ohio. 


XV 


CONTENTS 


Tue NATURE AND NEED oF APOLOGETICS 
A Lipperau Critic’s View or BrsiicaL INSPIRATION 


Tae OLp TESTAMENT RELIGION: REVELATION OR 
EvoLution? 


Tar Morat CHARACTER OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
JEHOVAH 


Tur JEHOVAH OF ISRAEL: UNIVERSAL OR NATIONAL? 
A Recent “History oF THE HEBREWS” 
THE WAY OF THE CRITICS 


Tum Boox or Jonaw: Fact or Fiction, LEGEND oR 
History? 


Curist’s WITNESS TO THE OLD TESTAMENT . 


Curist’s AUTHORITY THROUGHOUT THE New TESTA- 
MENT 


Tur Brsue A Book or RELIGION—AND More . 
Some THOUGHTS ON THE INCARNATION 


Gop AND ImMoRTALITY: WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE 
To LEUBA 


Dors Nature MaKe Proeress? A CRITICISM ON 
EVOLUTION . 


Scrpntiric THEorres THAT CHALLENGE FalrTH . 
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 


INDEX . 


PAGE 


104 
127 


147 
170 


202 
219 
233 


261 


281 
309 
331 
347 


CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


f: 


Pia: cA 
Pa hock gS, : 
wen 


CONTENDING FOR 
THE FAITH 


CHAPTER I 
THE NATURE AND NEED OF APOLOGETICS 


Tuat the truth should be both promoted and defended 
is a proposition that the author of this volume firmly be- 
lieves. He has no sympathy with the lackadaisical and 
lazy motto which prevails in some quarters: ‘‘Do not con- 
cern yourself about the truth; the truth will take care of 
itself!’’ If that were a fact, the whole history of the world, 
and especially of Christianity, ought to be rewritten. 
Then all Christian people might as well lay down their 
arms and be ‘‘at ease in Zion.’’ If the truth will take care 
of itself, why did Christ come into the world, incarnate the 
truth in His own person, and advocate and defend it on 
numerous occasions? If the truth will take care of itself, 
Peter and Paul and the rest of the apostles and evange- 
lists did a vast amount of superfluous work, for much of 
their preaching and writing was devoted to the vindication 
of the truth. Now they were advocates; anon they were 
staunch defenders. 

Dr. E. F. Scott has written a strong and valuable book 
on ‘‘The Apologetic Element in the New Testament’’ 
(1907), in which he proves that Christ and His apostles 
were often on the defensive as well as the aggressive, and 

13 


14 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


did not merely let ‘‘the truth take care of itself.’’ Again 
and again Christ defended His person, His mission and 
His message against the Pharisees, Scribes and Sadducees. 
Peter’s Pentecost sermon was a defense against the false 
charge, ‘‘These men are full of new wine,’’ and a powerful 
argument that Jesus, whom the Jews and Romans had cru- 
ecified, was the Messiah of the Old Testament and the di- 
vine Son of God. Why did he not save himself the trou- 
ble and danger of bearing his testimony by simply reflect- 
ing that ‘‘the truth will take care of itself’??? The New 
Testament tells us that Paul often ‘‘reasoned’’ with the 
Jews in their synagogues. His speech on Mar’s Hill was 
an acutely relevant apologetic, as was also his classical de- 
fense before King Agrippa. 

The inspired writers of the New Testament expressly 
command Christ’s disciples to use the apologetic method. 
Read 1 Peter 3:15: ‘‘But sanctify in your hearts Christ 
as Lord: being ready always to give an answer to every 
man that asketh you a reason concerning the hope that is 
in you, yet with meekness and fear.’’ Nor is Jude less 
emphatic (verse 3): ‘‘Beloved, while I was giving all dili- 
gence to write unto you of our common salvation, I was 
constrained to write unto you exhorting you to contend 
earnestly for the faith once for all delivered unto the 
saints.’’ In the next verse he gives the reason why such 
defense was necessary ; because ‘‘certain men had crept in 
privily’’ to destroy the doctrine of ‘‘our only Master and 
Lord, Jesus Christ.’? The same reason for defense obtains 
to-day, and has ever obtained in the history of the Chris- 
tian religion. 

There is only one way of propagating our holy faith, and 
that is by testimony. We Christians cannot and should 
not use force, but only persuasion and argument. ‘‘Ye 
are my witnesses,’’ said the Master to His disciples. Sup- 
pose they had refused to bear witness on the false notion 


NATURE AND NEED OF APOLOGETICS 15 


that ‘‘the truth will take care of itself,’’ what would have 
become of the religion of Christ? When Jesus gave His 
great commission to His disciples, ‘‘Go ye into all the world 
and preach the gospel to the whole creation,’’ He surely 
meant that the gospel should be proclaimed to gainsayers 
and opponents as well as to the ignorant and indifferent. 
Nor can we believe that all the noble army of defenders 
of the faith from Justin the Martyr, Arnobius and Ire- 
neus to Luthardt, Orr and Green, have toiled in vain. 
When we turn to our library shelves, which are filled with 
the monumental works of the great apologists of the Chris- 
tian faith, both ancient and modern, we cannot believe that 
all these scholarly investigations and self-sacrificing labors 
have gone for naught. Indeed, we are constrained to hold, 
from our study of church history, that Christianity would 
long ago have perished from the earth, had not brave, 
stalwart and competent defenders of the evangelical faith 
always arisen to stay the onslaughts of assailants. Why 
should not the Christian apologist, as well as any other 
teacher of religion, have a divine vocation? 

The viewpoint of the unbeliever himself is also worth 
considering. Suppose no Christian scholar would ever en- 
ter the arena against him, surely he would think that 
Christians were cowards and knew they could not defend 
their cause. And would he not have a right to think so? 
It is both vain and wrong merely to sneer at the unbe- 
liever or rationalist, or simply to aver that his arguments 
are not worth answering, or that he is dishonest and con- 
ceited. That is a cheap and easy way of dealing with 
doubters, and a lazy way, too; but it never convinces them; 
rather, it encourages and fortifies them in their skepticism. 
On the other hand, if the apologist can refute argument 
with stronger argument, can match scholarship with schol- 
arship, and thus can vindicate the Christian faith at the 
bar of reason, he may succeed in convincing even the 


16 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


doubter and in leading him in the way of assurance and 
truth. If he cannot be won in that way, he surely can 
never be won by dogmatism, or browbeating, or contemp- 
tuous silence. 

Let it be frankly admitted that not all preaching and 
teaching should be apologetic. In many cases the purely 
positive method is the better. It depends upon circum- 
stances as to the proper plan to be pursued. If the 
preacher has no infidels nor rationalists in his congregation 
or no people who are troubled with doubt, he should not 
misspend his time in talking to people who are not pres- 
ent. Moreover, by saying too much about skepticism or 
radical criticism, he may even stir doubt in the minds of 
the innocent and unwary rather than fortify their faith. 
For the most part, the Christian preacher should simply 
take the truth of the Christian religion for granted. 

However, such cases are very different from that of the 
writer who feels called to defend the faith against the pre- 
vailing and popular currents of unbelief, and to circulate 
his books among people who are inoculated with doubt, 
or distressed with difficulties which they cannot resolve. 
Surely it is some one’s duty to come to the help and rescue 
of the people whose faith is being imperiled. If some men 
do not possess the gift or taste to enter the apologetic field, 
let them cultivate the gifts they have, and leave the field 
of argument, defense and vindication to those who feel 
that they have a divine vocation for such work. Let all 
evangelical believers encourage and abet one another in 
their several spheres of labor for Christ. It is merely a 
sign of narrowness for any one to scoff at every vocation 
save that to which he devotes himself. A good motto for 
all preachers and teachers of divine truth is found in 2 Cor. 
4:1,2: ‘‘Therefore, seeing we have this ministry, even as. 
we have obtained mercy, we faint not: but we have re- 
nounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in crafti- 


NATURE AND NEED OF APOLOGETICS 14% 


ness, nor handling the Word of God deceitfully; but, by 
the manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves to 
every man’s conscience in the sight of God.’’ 

We must attend to another objection. Some years ago 
a correspondent (one who, by the way, was liberalistic in 
his theology) accused the writer of being unduly nervous 
about the truth, because, forsooth, we so frequently came 
to the defense of the orthodox faith. His allegation was 
that we could not ourself feel secure in our position, or 
we would not be so ‘‘feverishly’’ anxious to fly to its de- 
fense. That is, we were like the boy in the graveyard, 
“‘whistling to keep our courage up.’’ We were using the 
apologetic method to bolster up our own wavering faith. 

Well, a suspicious mind, one given to ‘*judging,’’ might 
read that ulterior motive into the conduct of a defender 
of the faith. But we most positively disclaim any such 
nervous anxiety on our own behalf. We are willing to 
admit, too, that, in God’s all-wise economy and plan, His 
truth will finally prevail without our efforts. But that 
is not the point at all. First, the surer we are of the truth 
for ourselves, the more anxious we should be to win the 
erring to its standard. We regard it as wicked selfishness, 
utterly unworthy of a Christian believer, to rest ‘‘at ease 
in Zion,’’ on the ground that he feels secure in the saving 
truth of the gospel for himself. Is it not rather true that 
those who do not feel sure of the truth are the ones who 
keep silent? 

Second, though God’s cause will triumph in the end 
without our efforts, yet how many people may perish along 
the way if you and I fail to do our duty! That is the mat- 
ter of paramount importance. God is able to bring good 
out of evil and make the wrath of man to praise Him— 
but how about the personal doom of those who do the evil? 
Yonder is a bright young man who is drifting into doubt 
through the perusal of some of the modern books of radi- 


18 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


cal Biblical criticism. Are you simply going to let him 
drift, and lose his faith and perhaps his soul? Would it 
not be better to show him the errors of the men who are 
leading him astray, and thus try to reéstablish his faith? 
If you do save him, who knows but that he may become a 
flaming proclaimer of that faith which he had almost lost? 
For our part, we believe in trying to save the skeptical or 
rationalistic sinner as well as any other kind of a sinner. 
Perhaps you are best adapted to rescue one class of sin- 
ners; perhaps another man is best adapted to rescue an- 
other kind. ‘‘To every man his work.’’ ‘‘To each accord- 
ing to his several ability.’’ ‘‘But all these worketh one and 
the same Spirit, dividing to each one severally as He will.’’ 
No; it is not a question of the final triumph of the truth, 
which is in God’s hands; it is a question of saving and 
directing as many people as you can while life and oppor- 
tunity last. 

A few words should be said as to the kind of apologetics 
that the times demand. As the reader peruses this book, 
he will see that we believe in the positive method. For 
example, we do not believe in yielding so much to the disin- 
tegrating Biblical criticism as to endanger the divine au- 
thority and inspiration of the Holy Scriptures. Where we 
see danger, we have been free and frank to point it out. 
Our sincere conviction is that the orthodox faith, the faith 
that accepts the plenary inspiration of the Canonical Scrip- 
tures, is the faith that can best be vindicated at the bar of 
reason and that is based upon a sound, assuring and endur- 
ing religious experience; that it is easier by far to uphold 
this view by the rational process than to uphold a kind of 
quasi, half-and-half, pliant, fluid and compromising theol- 
ogy. We contend that, if half the effort were made by the 
rationalist to maintain the conservative position that he 
employs to undermine it, he would be a capable defender 
instead of a destructive critic. The thing that has amazed 


NATURE AND NEED OF APOLOGETICS 19 


us many a time has been the limping logie of the rational- 
ist; the ease with which he can accept a theory that lacks 
even a moderately rational basis. To put it in an epigram, 
the credulity of rationalism is proverbial. At present we 
admit that this is bare assertion; we hope to prove the 
truth of the assertion in the body of this book. 

We cannot agree with Professor C. W. E. Body, who, 
in some parts of his valuable work, ‘‘The Permanent Value 
of the Book of Genesis,’’ maintains that there is no real 
peril to the faith in the methods and conclusions of the so- 
called ‘‘mediating’’ Biblical criticism of the Cheyne-Driver 
school. We are compelled by the strictly logical process to 
take a firmer position than that. If the Bible has been 
composed in the way the aforesaid school of critics main- 
tains, its divine inspiration is certainly invalidated, and 
confidence in its teaching will surely be lost by those who 
will insist on pushing the premises to their logical conclu- 
sion. We think we have proved this in the chapter en- 
titled, ‘*A Liberal Critic’s View of Biblical Inspiration,’’ 
the critic referred to being Driver. The reason some of 
these critics, in spite of their destructively critical meth- 
ods, still profess to hold to the evangelical faith is that they 
fail to draw the legitimate inferences from their premises. 
They stop short at the brink, and fall back on a forced 
faith, a faith of mere feeling, a naive faith, which is very 
near akin to credulity. But most people will not stop 
there; they will push on to the inevitable conclusion. And 
this is the conclusion: If the Bible is made up of myths 
and legends where it professes to recite history, and if it 
contains many irreconcilable contradictions and scientific 
blunders, as the said critics contend, then surely, surely it 
cannot be divinely inspired in any sense in which men can 
confide and upon which they can base their hope of salva- 
tion. If the critics themselves will not reason logically, 
many of their readers and disciples will. A faith ‘‘that 


20 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


trembles on the brink’’ is of little value in the stress of 
our earthly life. 

Above we have referred to Dr. Body’s excellent work. 
We hold that he makes some dangerous concessions to the 
Cheyne-Driver school of critics—concessions, too, that are 
entirely unnecessary, even on the ground of reason. In 
his discussion of the Bible and science he also takes a pre- 
carious position, which is evidenced by the very fact that 
he so often glides off into glittering generalities, and fails 
to state definitely and clearly just what he believes. Note 
his inconsistency. He holds that the first and second chap- 
ters of Genesis are of great and momentous religious value, 
and are vitally related to God’s redemptive plan through 
Jesus Christ. But suppose, after all, that the Genetical 
narratives of creation are not true, but contain many myth- 
ological guesses and scientific errors—then, pray, how can 
they be of real religious value to the man who exercises 
his logical faculty? However, we are glad to acknowledge 
that Dr. Body, in the best chapters of his book, points out 
most effectively the untenable and irrational character of 
the literary analysis of the Pentateuch by the Driver school. 
On this account his work is a profitable apologetic. Our 
conundrum is this: How can he hold that the views of 
the critical school are so unreasonable and yet do no dis- 
service to saving faith in the Bible? Surely a view that has 
no’solid basis in fact and reason must imperil the evan- 
gelical position with people who draw logical conclusions. 

But hanpily our author himself, inconsistent as his atti- 
tude may seem, points out in other places in his book the 
dangerous character of the critical methods and positions. 
For example, in his invaluable chapter on ‘‘The Creation 
and Paradise’’ (though there are some statements in it 
from which we must dissent), he gives many convincing 
reasons for the unity of the teaching of Genesis I and II, 
which the Cheyne-Driver school do their best to make con- 


NATURE AND NEED OF APOLOGETICS 21 


tradictory. Dr. Body proves that they are not discrepant 
but harmonious and complementary accounts of the proc- 
ess of creation. Then, in the closing paragraph of this 
chapter (page 126), he sums up in this way: ‘‘In a word, 
to recognize the true relation between these accounts is to 
possess the necessary preparation alike for the deepest 
revelations of God and the highest conceptions of life. To 
tear them asunder is to inflict upon mankind serious spir- 
itual loss. To lessen in any way their influence is to cut 
at the very root of true progress, either in the knowledge 
of God or the regeneration of man.’’ In this paragraph 
Dr. Body has himself pointed out the deadly danger that 
comes from the critical methods of the school under con- 
sideration. Whatever inflicts on ‘‘mankind serious spirit- 
ual loss,’’ and ‘‘cuts at the very root of all true progress 
either in the knowledge of God or the regeneration of 
man’’—whatever does that surely must undermine the very 
foundations of Christian faith. In our author’s excellent 
chapter on ‘‘The Fall and Its Immediate Results,’’ he ex- 
presses fine and well-deserved indignation at the irreverent 
way with which President Harper and Professor Addis 
treat certain portions of the Biblical narrative (Gen. III), 
which, to Dr. Body himself, is as holy as a shrine. He 
should have remembered that Harper and Addis belonged 
to the so-called ‘‘mediating’’ school of critics, of which 
Driver was the dean. We do not blame Dr. Body in the 
least for his display of righteous indignation; but we are 
constrained to ask whether such treatment of the Genetical 
narrative as he rebukes so sternly does not imperil faith 
in the Bible as a divine revelation. Dr. Body shows effec- 
tually that the Biblical narrative of the Fall constitutes 
the basis of and reason for the redemptive work of Christ. 
If that is so, is not the very heart of evangelical and saving 
faith penetrated by those critics who treat the Fall narra- 
tive as if it were only a childish myth or a primitive human 


22 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


tradition? No; we must contend that the dissecting eriti- 
cism which finds crudities, discrepancies, doctrinal and 
ethical errors in the Bible endangers faith in the Book as 
a God-given revelation. Those who hold otherwise are try- 
ing to cling to a very insecure position. Their faith— 
which they so loudly proclaim—is naive rather than based 
on sound rational principles. 

It is pertinent to show how stoutly Dr. Body stands for 
the Genetical narrative and how firmly he opposes the nul- 
lifying criticism of the Harper sort. Dr. Harper, in criti- 
eizing the narrative of the Fall, holds that our first par- 
ents, by eating of the forbidden fruit, ‘‘gained one super- 
human attribute, viz., wisdom,’’ and then hints—remem- 
ber, hints—that God was ‘‘jealous’’ of the wisdom that 
man had thus acquired. This is more than Dr. Body can 
tolerate with patience. He breaks out thus: ‘‘ ‘Gained 
superhuman wisdom’ indeed! Where, we may well ask, 
save in the lying sophistries of the Tempter, is there a ves- 
tige of such a conception?’’ Are not the positions of the 
critics dangerous to faith if they merit such a rebuke? 
Then our author adds, in commenting on the sentence, 
‘*Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good 
and evil,’’ that this statement, ‘‘when taken, as it should 
be, in the light of its context, is seen to refer, not to a real 
advance in wisdom, but to the rending of merciful limi- 
tations, which shielded the development of man’s knowl- 
edge; to the premature and illicit acquisition of the knowl- 
edge of evil by experience, which, like every species of un- 
lawful knowledge, does not really impart wisdom to the 
possessor, but rather destroys it. Surely we are entitled 
to protest against all this as not merely a grossly inaccu- 
rate, but as an utterly unjustifiable, method of dealing 
with Holy Scripture. As soon might one expect to hear 
the Sacred Volume branded as atheistic on account of the 
well-known utterance of the fool in the Psalter, as to find 


NATURE AND NEED OF APOLOGETICS 23 


the merciful Creator suspected of an unworthy jealousy of 
the shame of His poor fallen creatures. ’’ 

This is robust defense of the faith; and, when you con- 
sider the momentous nature of the facts at issue, the lofty 
tone of indignation is seen to be justifiable. It proves our 
contention, namely, that the critical methods of the school 
in question do imperil the true faith.* So let us not capitu- 
late to them; reason and facts do not warrant surrender. 

As if to prove this contention by a concrete example, a 
notable instance has lately come to the fore. We refer to 
the publication of ‘‘The Shorter Bible’’ (only the New 
Testament as yet), translated and arranged by Charles 
Foster Kent, with the collaboration of a number of other 
critics of the same class. Dr. Kent is known as one of the 
most respected of the so-called ‘‘mediating’’ critics. In 
his introductory note he declares that this work is intended 
to include ‘‘those parts of the Bible which are of vital in- 
terest and practical value to the present age.’’ This cer- 
tainly implies that what he has omitted is not regarded by 
him as of ‘‘vital interest and practical value.’’ But note 
some of the things deliberately, purposely omitted from this 
‘“expurgated’’ New Testament: 2 Tim. 3:16, 1 Pet. 1:21, 
1 Pet, 1:25, Jude 3, Matt. 5:18, 19, and others, all of which 
teach the inspiration and divine authority of the Holy 
Seriptures. When such passages are actually eliminated by 
a critic, dare any one say that his methods do not eviscerate 
the integrity and inspiration of the Bible? Nearly all 
the passages teaching the doctrine of the atonement are cut 
out; so are many of those referring to sin, guilt, natural 
depravity, false teaching, and our Lord’s second coming. 


* Although we have ventured to pass some strictures on Dr. Body’s 
work, yet it is of so much value that we have included it in the 
“<Selected Bibliography’’ of conservative works at the end of this 
volume. It is too important to be omitted. Few books give a more 
demolishing refutation of the arguments of the Cheyne-Driver-Addis- 
Harper school of Biblical critics. 


24 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


The great passage on the resurrection, 1 Thess. 4:13-18, is 
not included in ‘‘The Shorter Bible.’’ It is significant, 
too, not to say pathetic, that Rev. 22:18, 19, relative to the 
danger of adding to and taking away from “‘the prophecy 
of this book,’’ is left out. So is the great key passage, 
1 Pet. 1:18-20: ‘‘ Knowing this, that ye were redeemed, not 
with corruptible things, with silver and gold, from your 
vain manner of life, handed down from your fathers; but 
with precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish and 
without spot, even the blood of Christ; who was foreknown 
indeed before the foundations of the world, but was mani- 
fested at the end of the times for your sakes.’’ Think, my 
brethren, of the theology of a critic who would elide that 
passage from the Bible as not being ‘‘of vital interest and 
practical value to the present age!’’ The whole epistle of 
Jude is omitted. Why? It contains the well-known ex- 
hortation to ‘‘contend earnestly for the faith once for all 
delivered unto the saints.’’ Evidently that was too strong 
for this liberalist, who craves a more lackadaisical doc- 
trine. Yet in his preface he declares that his book is in- 
tended to give ‘‘the true heart of the gospel.’’ 

Amazing it is, and distressing as well, to note how many 
people simply capitulate to the liberal criticism. At this 
very writing (July 22, 1919) an advertising circular from 
the publishers of ‘‘The Shorter Bible’’ comes through the 
mail to our desk.* It contains quite a number of ‘‘ personal 
opinions and press notices’’ of the book. Many persons 
and periodicals of high rank commend the work, some of 
them almost fulsomely.. The limpid and charming style 
of the translation seems to captivate them and dazzle the 
eyes of their judicial and critical faculties. Evidently they 
have failed to note the many vital excisions from God’s in- 

*A year later one of our religious periodicals informs us that 


the publishers are still ‘‘pushing’’ the book, and are making great 
claims for it. 


NATURE AND NEED OF APOLOGETICS 25 


spired Word, and, saddest of all, do not seem to have missed 
the elided portions. This fact proves the statement to be 
untrue that all one needs to do is to read the liberal books 
in order to be convinced of their weakness. The truth 
rather is that many people, even people of high standing 
in scholarly circles, are caught in the web of the insidious 
critical methods. Therefore the peril must be clearly 
pointed out. Had Dr. Kent simply given us a beautiful 
modern translation of the New Testament, without omis- 
sions or glosses, what a good and great service he might 
have done for the cause of evangelical Christianity ! 

No more need be said here about the sapping character 
of the critical methods of the liberals. We shall return to 
the subject more than once as we proceed with our analyses. 

A thorough-going apologetic is needed to-day—one that 
gives cogent and convincing reasons for the orthodox posi- 
tions. You cannot dismiss the liberalists and radical critics 
with a supercilious toss of the head or a scornful curl of 
the lip. That is never the right way to answer an op- 
ponent, nor the effective way. Ridicule seldom, if ever, is 
in place. The only ethical thing to do is to give sound 
reasons for the faith you hold and the hope you cherish. 
By all means try to treat your opponent fairly and respect- 
fully. Sometimes you hear something like this: ‘‘You 
do not need to read a book in reply to the radical critics; 
just read their books yourself, and you will see at once 
how worthless they are!’’ That is what we would call ‘‘the 
high and mighty style.’’ It is the dogmatic way. But it 
takes too much for granted, and does not coincide with the 
facts in the case. If it is true that the errors of the de- 
structive critics are so easily seen and overcome, why do 
the critics believe themselves to be correct? And why do 
they command so large a following among scholarly and 
thinking people? If their works are so weak and uncon- 
vincing, why do so many publishers assume the risk of 


26 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


issuing them? A good many leading publishers within the 
last two or three decades have refused to publish any re- 
ligious books except those of a liberal character, because 
conservative books could not be made to pay. There was 
not a sufficient demand for them to warrant the financial 
outlay. This condition of affairs is prima facie proof that 
many people are won over to the liberal side through the 
perusal of the critical productions. We have known young 
persons to be led astray by such reading, and it required 
not a little argument and persuasion to bring them back 
to the evangelical faith. Far too many people are caught 
by the plausibility with which the negative critics present 
their case. We know of no better remedy for their trou- 
ble than the perusal of cogently written rejoinders to the 
eritics. And there are many such works, as the following 
pages will demonstrate. They are works written by com- 
petent scholars, who are able to match erudition with eru- 
dition, and to point out most effectively the weak points in 
the radical positions. 

A word as to the proper spirit or temper of the modern 
apologetic. In the following writing, it is possible that 
sometimes a slight tone of scorn or indignation may be dis- 
cernible, especially when a position seems to be utterly ill- 
taken; but we do not want any feeling of rancor to be 
read into or between the lines. We entertain no such emo- 
tion. Where some vigorous expressions are employed, they 
are to be attributed to earnestness, not to anger or con- 
tumely. Nor do we mean to call in question the sincerity 
of our opponents. We hold no brief for dealing with their 
motives; we have to do only with the positions they have 
taken on Biblical and theological questions. Surely we 
may try to prove their positions wrong and illogical with- 
out being called upon to pronounce a verdict on their 
standing before God. 

Sometimes, when the bad logic of the critics is pointed 


NATURE AND NEED OF APOLOGETICS 27 


out, they raise the cry of ‘‘persecution.’’ That is quite 
aside from the mark. Certainly, if they have a right to 
attack the evangelical positions, or undermine them sur- 
reptitiously, others have a right to defend them, and to set 
forth the rational grounds of their defense. It is only 
human that men who are in earnest should express them- 
selves vigorously ; but that is something far removed from 
the wish to persecute an opponent. The days of the thumb- 
screw in religion are happily gone. But it would be one- 
sided and unfair for the dissecting critics to be permitted 
to flood the market with their books, and then put an em- 
bargo on all replies to their attacks. If there is sometimes 
too much dogmatism on the conservative side, there often 
is no less on the liberal side, especially when that side 
claims all the ‘‘assured results’’ and ‘‘scholarship’’ of the 
day, and ignores the many scholarly works that have been 
written in response to the liberalistic output. Again and 
again we shall show in this work that the so-called liberals 
are often very illiberal; also that they are often ultra-con- 
servative, while some of their views are old enough to be 
ealled ‘‘traditional.’’ Let there be a free debate on both 
sides; only let us avoid the slashing, vituperative style of 
polemics. 

Quite a number of the chapters of this volume deal with 
the problems of Biblical Criticism in their relation to 
Apologetics. It should be borne in mind that the two de- 
partments of theology, namely, Biblical Criticism and 
Apologetics, cannot be divorced. Whenever the former in 
any way affects the inspiration, integrity and authority of 
the Sacred Scriptures, it trenches on the territory of the 
latter. Indeed, all the branches of theological science 
stand in organic and reciprocal relations. 

A few of the following chapters treat of certain doctrines 
that require defense, as we think, against the tendencies of 
so-called ‘‘modern thought.’’ One of them discusses the 


28 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


much-vaunted theory of evolution, and another attempts 
to prove that the mysteries of physical science are no less 
insoluble than the mysteries of theological science. 

The book is sent on its way with the prayer and hope 
that it may perform some part, even though humble, in 
extending the kingdom of Christ by emphasizing and incul- 
cating a sturdy faith. It is the only kind of faith that will 
weather the storms and trials of our earthly life. 


CHAPTER II 
A LIBERAL CRITIC’S VIEW OF BIBLICAL INSPIRATION 


As has been shown in the preceding chapter, the position 
is sometimes taken that the liberal criticism of the Bible, 
especially that which wants to be known as the ‘‘mediat- 
ing’’ criticism, does not annul or even endanger the in- 
spiration of the Holy Scriptures, and that therefore con- 
servative believers are wasting their energy in opposing 
them. The following chapter, though only a fragment, is 
intended to prove that the Bible as a divine book is not safe 
in the hands of the said critics, While they may profess 
to uphold the inspiration of the Bible, they virtually de- 
stroy it. They are illogical when they hold otherwise, but 
many of their followers will carry their premises to their 
legitimate conclusions, even when the critics themselves 
do not realize the untenable character of their contentions. 
So, in this chapter, we take as an illustration the work of 
one of the best known of the liberal critics. 

Before us lies a copy of Dr. S. R. Driver’s ‘‘ An Intro- 
duction to the Literature of the Old Testament,’’ new edi- 
tion, revised, 1913. This work was first published in 
1891, and therefore might be regarded as almost out of 
date; but, after running through seven editions, it was re- 
vised by the author in 1909, and brought up to date at that 
time. In his addition to the preface of that edition the 
author said (p. XIII): ‘‘Highteen years have elapsed 
since the first edition of the present work was published, 
and the preceding preface written substantially as it still 

29 


30 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


stands.’’ In the preface to the last edition (1913) the au- 
thor says: ‘‘In the present edition the bibliography, and, 
where necessary, the references, have been brought up to 
date; the paragraph on Isa, 22: 1-14, in view of recent ex- 
egesis, has been rewritten, and occasionally also a slight 
improvement has been introduced elsewhere; while some 
other matter (including a note on the value of the divine 
names as a criterion of authorship in the Pentateuch), 
for which space could not be found in the body of the 
volume, has been collected in the new Addenda (p. XXV 
Err: 

Hence we have before us Dr. Driver’s latest pronounce- 
ments on the criticism of the Old Testament. His death 
occurred since this edition was issued, and no statement 
has ever been made that he superintended a later revision. 
Anyway, a book published in 1913 ought not to be anti- 
quated in 1920. If it were, all the critical labor bestowed 
upon it would surely be of small value, and would be labor 
lost. So we maintain that we have in this volume, wher- 
ever we may quote from it, Dr. Driver’s latest views, his 
most matured decisions; therefore the liberal Biblical criti- 
cism brought up to date. 

Now, Dr. Driver may be regarded as facile princeps 
among the more moderate of the liberal Biblical critics. 
He was not so radical as Robertson Smith and T. K. 
Cheyne, and contantly tried to mediate between the criti- 
cal positions of the Graf-Wellhausen school and the evan- 
gelical faith. Admitting and defending the main positions 
(though differing on minor points) of that school, he was 
not willing to push on to all their naturalistic and anti- 
supernatural conclusions. Almost all the recent liberalistice 
critical writers on the Bible, such as Kent, Foster, Bade, 
Peritz and Sanders, depend on Driver to a greater or less 
extent for their material, and often parrot his teaching; 
and that frequently, it seems to us, without independent 


A LIBERAL VIEW OF INSPIRATION 31 


investigation or judicial weighing of the premises. 

Our purpose now is to examine Dr. Driver’s position on 
the doctrine of Biblical inspiration as we find it set forth 
in this latest edition of his work. We go directly to Dri- 
ver’s own book, because there are people who think that 
some of us who hold to the conservative position never 
read the works of the liberal critics, but confine our read- 
ing to the books that have been written on our own side. If 
such accusants were to come into our libraries, and see the 
shelves filled with the liberal output, they would at once 
have their minds disabused of their error. That aside, let 
us apply ourselves to Driver. 

Looking in the index, we find only one reference to the 
inspiration of the Old Testament—pp. VIII-XI (it should 
be XIIT) of the preface. In this whole book on the Old 
Testament, consisting of 577 pages, much of it in fine 
print, there is only this lone reference to divine inspira- 
tion, and that is in the preface! All the rest of it consists 
of criticism, hair-splitting refinements, discussions of hu- 
man ‘‘sources,’’ ‘‘traditions,’’ ‘‘discrepancies,’’ ‘‘varia- 
tions,’’ and so on and on. This is certainly not very en- 
couraging, to start with. The very atmosphere of such a 
work is spiritually depressing. But we must be entirely 
fair to our author, and so will let him speak for himself. 
On p. VIII (preface) we find this statement: 

““It is not the case that critical conclusions, such as those 
expressed in the present volume, are in conflict with the 
Christian creeds or with the articles of the Christian faith. 
Those conclusions affect not the fact of revelation, but only 
its form. They help to determine the stages through which 
it passed, the different phases which it assumed, and the 
process by which the record of it was built up. They do 
not touch either the authority or the inspiration of the 
Scriptures of the Old Testament. They imply no change 
in respect to the divine attributes revealed in the Old Tes- 


32 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


tament; no change in tne lessons of human duty derived 
from it; no change as to the general position (apart from 
the interpretation of particular passages) that the Old 
Testament points forward prophetically to Christ.’’ 

Here we must pause for a moment. How glad we would 
be if it could be made clear that the critical methods of 
Driver and his school actually do thus uphold the integrity 
and inspiration of the Bible! We conservatives are not 
anxious to discover that many scholars of the day under- 
mine the authority of Scripture; it would be much more 
to our advantage if we could prove that the great body of 
them really uphold it in its integrity. However, respect- 
ing the foregoing quotation, we cannot help wondering 
why Dr. Driver was so persistent in advocating his views, 
spent so much time and effort, and used so much ink and 
paper in defending them, if, after all, they concern only 
the ‘‘form’’ of revelation, and in nowise affect the ‘‘fact.’’ 
Is the mere ‘‘form’’ so important? Does it make the Bible 
so much more precious to the Christian to have his faith 
in it simply take another ‘‘form’’? Anyway, what an im- 
mense amount of labor has been expended to establish 
merely a new ‘‘form’’! Just look at the shelves on shelves 
of ponderous and erudite tomes that have been published 
merely in the interest of a ‘‘form of revelation.’’ Accord- 
ing to Dr. Driver, one would think the whole conflict is, 
after all, only a ‘‘tempest in a tea-pot,’’ or ‘‘a mountain in 
labor bringing forth a mouse.’’ But we turn to Driver 
again (p. IX): 

‘‘That both the religion of Israel itself, and the record 
of its history embodied in the Old Testament, are the work 
of men whose hearts have been touched, and minds 1il- 
lumined, in different degrees, by the Spirit of God, is mani- 
fest; but the recognition of this truth does not decide the 
question of the author by whom, or the date at which, par- 
ticular parts of the Old Testament were committed to 


A LIBERAL VIEW OF INSPIRATION 33 


writing; nor does it determine the precise literary charac- 
ter of a given narrative or book. No part of the Bible, nor 
even the Bible as a whole, is a logically articulated system 
of theology: the Bible is a ‘library,’ showing how men, 
variously gifted by the Spirit of God, cast the truth which 
they received into many different literary forms, as genius 
permitted or occasion demanded,”’ ete. 

Many people will simply swallow and applaud the fore- 
going statement. It contains much truth, but it is only a 
partial, and therefore a specious, statement of the situa- 
tion. It is true that divine inspiration will not, in some 
eases, decide the questions of authorship and date. How- 
ever, in other cases these points are most intimately con- 
nected. For example, when the Bible declares that Moses 
wrote large portions of the Pentateuch, whereas the critics 
- assert that he wrote none of it or very little, then are not 
the divine inspiration and veracity of the Bible endangered, 
nay, invalidated, by the critical process? Again, when the 
book of Genesis recites events as if they were actual his- 
tory, and then the critics of the Driver school declare that 
they are not history, but mostly myth, legend, folk-lore 
and tradition, invented and composed by writers living 
centuries afterward, will not the question of date and au- 
thorship affect the ‘‘fact,’’ as well as the ‘‘form,’’ of reve- 
lation? Therefore our author’s statement, quoted above, 
will not bear critical analysis; it is more adroit than accu- 
rate. 

Often have we remarked that it is next to impossible 
for a liberal critic to be logical and consistent. After say- 
ing (p. VIII) that his critical methods ‘‘do not touch 
either the authority or inspiration of the Scriptures of the 
Old Testament,’’ Dr. Driver remarks on page X: ‘‘None 
of the historians of the Bible claim supernatural enlighten- _ 
ment for the materials of their narrative: it is reasonable, 
therefore, to conclude that these were derived by them 


34 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


from such human sources as were at the disposal of each 
particular writer; in some cases from a writer’s own per- 
sonal knowledge; in others from early documentary 
sources; in others, especially those relating to a distant 
past, from popular tradition.”’ 

We are not overlooking Dr. Driver’s next remarks, but 
will come to them later. Let us now stop and analyze the 
above. ‘‘None of the historians of the Bible claim super- 
natural enlightenment for the materials of their narra- 
tive.’’ The italics are Driver’s. Moses was a historian. 
He certainly claimed ‘‘supernatural enlightenment’’ again 
and again, and that, too, for the ‘‘materials’’ of his narra- 
tive. Just drop down almost at random in the book of 
Exddus—12 :43-49, beginning, ‘‘And Jehovah said unto 
Moses and Aaron, This is the ordinance of the passover ;’’ 
13:1: ‘‘And Jehovah spake unto Moses, saying, Sanctify 
unto me all the first-born,’’ ete.;’? 14:1: ‘‘And Jehovah 
spake unto Moses, Speak unto the children of Israel that 
they turn back and camp before Pi-hahiroth,”’ etc.; 20:1: 
‘‘And God spake all these words, saying,’’ etc.; and so on 
through chapter after chapter. Now, if the critics teach 
that God did not give Moses all this material, and the Bible 
says He did, how can Dr. Driver hold that his critical 
methods do not affect the authority and inspiration of the 
Bible? To show our author’s inconsistency with himself 
again, we quote a footnote, taken from Sanday’s ‘‘Oracles 
of God,’’ which Driver cites approvingly (p. X): 

‘‘In all that relates to the revelation of God and His 
will, the writers (of the Bible) assert for themselves’ a 
definite inspiration; they claim to speak with an authority 
higher than their own. But in regard to the narrative of 
events, and to processes of literary composition, there is 
nothing so exceptional about them as to exempt them from 
the conditions to which other works would be exposed at 


A LIBERAL VIEW OF INSPIRATION 35 


the same place and time.’’ (Italics ours for emphasis.) 

Note this well. It means that some parts of the Bible 
are divinely inspired, while other parts are only human 
compositions, subject to the same conditions as ‘‘other 
works’’; yes, even ‘‘exposed’’ to the same kind of liability 
to error. If it does not means that, it has no meaning; it 
is mere beating of the empty air. Yet Driver had said on a 
previous page that his critical theories ‘‘do not touch 
either the authority or the inspiration’’ of the Scriptures! 
If the writers in narrating historical events were ‘‘ex- 
posed’” to the same conditions as other writers, and hence 
liable to error, what becomes of their authority and in- 
spiration? Hear Driver again (p. X): 

‘‘Tt was the function of inspiration to guide the in- 
dividual writer in the choice and disposition of his material, 
and in his use of it for the inculcation of special lessons.’’ 

That certainly is good; it sounds almost as if the writer 
believed in verbal inspiration; it certainly would spell 
plenary inspiration ; yes, and infallible inspiration. If only 
the author could have held fast to such principles in the 
rest of his book! Note again how orthodox he was: ‘‘The 
whole is subordinated to the controlling agency of the 
Spirit of God,, causing the Scriptures of the Old Testa- 
ment to be profitable ‘for teaching, for reproof, for cor- 
rection, for instruction which is in righteousness.’ ”’ 

Why, that is almost rashly orthodox and conservative. 
It must have been Dr. Driver’s heart, and not his head, 
that indited that statement. Nor can any conservative 
theologian object to the following discriminating remark: 
‘‘But, under this presiding influence (that of the Holy 
Spirit), scope is left for the exercise, in different modes 
and ways, of the faculties ordinarily employed in literary 
composition. There is a human factor in the Bible, which, 
though quickened and sustained by the informing Spirit, 
is never wholly absorbed or neutralized by it.’’ 


36 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


Who ever said it was? Here Driver is stating a com- 
monplace truth, which no conservative scholar has ever 
questioned. Why should he assume a polemical tone in 
stating it? He is fighting a man of straw. What he says 
in the next sentence, spite of its challenging air, is so trite 
and generally accepted that it is not worth quoting. Let 
us now see how consistently our would-be champion of 
Biblical inspiration stands by his principles. On page XI 
he inserts a long footnote, which we must now scrutinize. 

There are ‘‘two principles,’’ he says, ‘‘that will be found 
to solve nearly all the difficulties,’? which ‘‘are insuper- 
able’’ according to ‘‘the traditional view.’’ And what are 
those principles? The first is, ‘‘that in many parts of 
these, books (of the Old Testament) we have before us 
traditions, in which the original representation has been 
insensibly modified, and sometimes (especially in the later 
books) colored, by the associations of the age in which the 
author recording it lived.’’ 

Logical inconsistency is the chronic malady of the ration- 
alist. Compare the above with what.the author had just 
said on p. X: ‘‘It was the function of inspiration to 
guide the individual writer in the choice and disposition 
of his material, and in his use of it for the inculcation of 
special lessons.’’? Here inspiration is claimed for the Bib- 
lical writers. But how does that comport with the state- 
ment (p. XI) that in many parts of the Old Testament 
books ‘‘we have before us traditions,’’ and that ‘‘the orig- 
inal representation has*been insensibly modified, and some- 
times colored, by the associations of’’ the writer’s age? How 
could the writer be under ‘‘the controlling agency of the 
Spirit of God,’’ and yet ‘‘modify’’ and ‘‘color’’ the ‘‘orig- ~ 
inal representation’’? If the ‘‘original representation’’ 
was true, and the writer modified and colored it, he turned 
it into error, and therefore could not have been guided ‘‘in 
the choice and disposition: of- his material’’ by the Holy 


A LIBERAL VIEW OF INSPIRATION 37 


Spirit. If the ‘‘original representation’? was wrong, and 
\the writer corrected it, why are there any ‘‘difficulties’’ in 
the Biblical text which, according to the traditional view, 
are ‘‘insuperable’’? The simple fact is, Driver means in 
this passage to say that the Biblical writers were themselves 
responsible for creating the ‘‘difficulties,’’ because they 
‘‘insensibly modified, and sometimes colored’’ the facts. 
Would they have glossed them thus if they had been guided 
by the Holy Spirit? Cannot the reader see why, in spite 
of the protests of Driver and his followers, their views 
annul the authority, trustworthiness and inspiration of the 
Sacred Scriptures? Their chief proponent cannot hold his 
head steady on two consecutive pages! We will not call in 
question their motives, but we confess that we have no 
confidence in their logical processes. To prove it further, 
we are going to convict our author from this same foot- 
note of disloyalty to his own claim that the Old Testament 
writers were divinely inspired. He says (still on page XI): 
‘¢Should it be feared that the first of these principles, 
if admitted, might imperil the foundations of the Chris- 
tian faith, it is to be pointed out that the records of the 
New Testament were produced under very different his- 
torical conditions; that, while in the Old Testament, for 
example, there are instances in which we can have no as- 
surance that an event was recorded until many centuries 
after its occurrence, in the New Testament the interval at 
most is not more than 30-50 years.’’ Then he claims that 
the facts of our Lord’s life could not ‘‘have been the growth 
-of mere tradition, or anything else than strictly historical.”’ 
Then: ‘‘The same canon of historical criticism which 
authorizes the assumption of tradition in the Old Testa- 
ment forbids it—except within the narrowest limits, as in 
some of the divergencies apparent in the parallel narra- 
tives of the Gospels—in the case of the New Testament.’’ 
Now note: he puts the Old Testament and the New on 


38 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


different bases. While arguing that the New Testament 
is historically reliable, he admits that the Old is not, be- 
cause it is made up largely of ‘‘tradition.’’ Yet on the 
preceding page he had said of the Old Testament: ‘‘The 
whole is subordinated to the controlling agency of the 
Spirit of God.’’ That is a fair specimen of the logic of 
rationalism. Do you wonder that we cannot allow the 
major premises of these liberal critics? 

On p. XII our author tries to show that his critical 
view of the Old Testament does not invalidate the authority 
of our Lord. We can take the space to quote only what is 
relevant: 

‘‘He accepted, as the basis of His teaching, the opinions 
respecting the Old Testament current around Him; He 
assumed, in His allusions to it, the premises which His 
opponents recognized, and which could not have been 
questioned (even if it had been necessary to question them) 
without raising issues for which the time was not yet ripe} 
and which, had they been raised, would have interfered 
seriously with the paramount purpose of His life.’’ 

Such arguments have frequently been answered; see Orr, 
‘‘The Problem of the Old Testament,’’ pp. 3, 38, 370, 523; 
Lias, ‘‘ Principles of Biblical Criticism,’’ Chap. VII; Smith, 
‘<The Integrity of Scripture,’’ Chap. III; Beattie, ‘‘ Radical 
Criticism,’’ Chapters XTV, XV; Urquhart, ‘‘The Inspira- 
tion and Accuracy of Holy Scripture,’’ Book I, Chap. VI; 
Burrell, ‘‘The Teaching of Jesus Concerning the .Scrip- 
tures’”’; Wright, ‘‘Scientific Confirmations of the Old Tes- 
tament History,’’ Chap. I; Blanchard, ‘‘ Visions and 
Voices,’’? Chap. IX; McGarvey, ‘‘The Authorship of Deu- 
teronomy,’’ pp. 264-297 (very acute), and many others. 
We will simply say here thai, if Jesus accepted the current 
views of the Old Testament, which were wrong, according 
to the critics, then He either knew they were wrong, in 
which case He connived at and encouraged error, and be- 


A LIBERAL VIEW OF INSPIRATION 39 


came an opportunist; or else He did not know they were 
wrong, in which case He was not divine. In either case 
our confidence in Him would be undermined. Let us add 
that we have read a good many of the liberals who hold 
Driver’s views, and nearly, if not quite, all of them have 
inadequate ideas of the person and work of Christ. Here 
is another remarkable quotation from Driver’s book (p. 
XITI) : i 

‘Criticism in the hands of Christian scholars does not 
banish or destroy the inspiration of the Old Testament; it 
presupposes it; it seeks only to determine the conditions 
under which it operates and the literary forms through 
which it manifests itself; and it thus helps us to frame 
truer conceptions of the methods which it has pleased God 
to employ in revealing Himself to the ancient people of 
Israel, and in preparing the way for the fuller manifesta- 
tion of Himself in Christ Jesus.’’ 

That sounds well, and if it were consistently carried 
out by Driver’s critical method, all of us would hail him 
as an evangelical scholar and paladin; but, alas! like the 
previous professions we have noted, it is scarcely uttered 
before it is forgotten. Already in 1893 Dr. James Robert- 
son, in his great work, ‘‘The Early Religion of Israel,”’ 
eriticized this sentence, and declared that Dr. Driver ought 
to give a definition of inspiration, and say wherein his 
view differed from the defective and naturalistic views of 
the Graf-Wellhauseri school. In remarking on Driver’s 
claim for the ‘‘inspired authority’’ of the Seriptures, Dr. S. 
C. Bartlett, in ‘‘The Veracity of the Hexateuch,’’ acutely | 
says: ‘‘But when we are informed by the same writer that 
we have but ‘traditions modified and colored by the asso- 
ciations of the age in which the author lived,’ and that the 
author used his ‘freedom in placing speeches in the mouths’ 
of the several characters, such as ‘he deemed to be con- 


40 CONTENDING FOR: THE FAITH 


sonant,’ . . . what becomes of the ‘inspired authority’ and 
religious lessons of such a book?”’ 

Verily the liberal critics have a hard time keeping -in 
their possession the jewel of consistency. It is with them 
as it was with the idolators of old of whom the Psalmist 
wrote: ‘‘Their sorrows shall be multiplied that exchange 
the Lord for another God’’ (Ps. 16:4). 

We have another fault to find with Dr. Driver’s dictum, 
namely, that he presupposes the inspiration of the Old 
Testament. While we believe in conservative methods, we 
do not believe in being so ultra conservative as to presup- 
pose one of the chief things to be investigated. If the 
critic is going to be unbiased, he cannot enter upon his 
investigations by presupposing the main proposition. Let 
us imagine a conservative critic making such a statement as 
Driver makes, and what an ado the liberals would raise 
about ‘‘preconceptions,’’ ‘‘predilections,’’ ‘‘hide-bound 
prejudices,’’ and so forth! Drs. William Henry Green, 
James Robertson, James Orr and J. J. Lias—all of them 
staunch conservatives—never began their work with any 
presuppositions like that; but, on the contrary, taking 
nothing for granted, they endeavored to prove each propo- 
sition as they proceeded. 

It remains now to see how faithfully and consistently 
Dr. Driver held to his ‘‘presupposition,’’ in the body of 
his work. Turn to p. 8. Here our author contends that 
Genesis is ‘‘composed of distinct documents or sources, 
which have been welded together by a later compiler or 
redactor into a continuous whole.’? What are the proofs 
he adduces? They are mainly*two: ‘‘(1) the same event 
is doubly recorded; (2) the language, and frequently the 
representation as well, varies in different sections.’? Then 
he proceeds to give examples of variance, Thus the first 
and second chapters of Genesis ‘‘contain a double narrative 
of the origin of man upon the earth.’’ Of course, he ad- 


A LIBERAL VIEW OF INSPIRATION AY 


mits, it might be argued that the second chapter gives ‘‘a 
more detailed account of what is described summarily in 
1:26-30;’’ but he will not allow that interpretation; for 
he says: ‘‘But upon closer examination, differences reveal 
themselves which preclude the supposition that both sec- 
tions are the work of the same hand.’’ In proof, he says 
that in 2:4bff. the order of creation is this: man, vegeta- 
tion, animals, woman, which he say is ‘‘ evidently opposed to 
the order indicated in Chapter I’’—vegetation, animals, 
man. In the next sentence he calls these differences ‘‘ma- 
terial differences’’ (italics his own). Now turn back to 
page XIII of his preface, and note what he says there: 
“‘Criticism, in the hands of Christian scholars, does not 
banish or destroy the inspiration of the Old Testament; it 
presupposes it;’’ also page X: ‘‘The whole is subordinated 
to the controlling agency of the Spirit of God.’’ Yet the 
Spirit led one Genetical writer to give one account of the 
creation in the first chapter, and another writer to give an- 
other and contradictory account in the second! Now we 
submit the question to any logical mind whether Driver’s 
critical procedure does not, after all, “‘banish or destroy 
the inspiration of the Old Testament.’’ Would the Holy 
Spirit contradict Himself? One cannot help wondering 
what was Driver’s idea of divine inspiration. Even a 
sensible redactor would not have permitted his narrative 
to contain evident contradictions, if he expected it to be 
believed. As to whether the first and second chapters of 
Genesis are really discrepant or not, is not the question we 
are dealing with now. They have been proven to be har- 
monious so often, the second being merely a more detailed 
narrative of man’s genesis and relations, that we need not 
tarry, but simply refer the reader to the works of Green, 
Orr, Cave, Body, Wright, et al. 

On p. 9 Dr. Driver insists that there are many 
‘* differences of representation’’ in the book of Genesis: for 


42 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


instance, in the narrative of the flood one document says 
that ‘‘of every clean beast seven are to be taken into the 
ark,’’ while the other says ‘‘two of every sort without dis- 
tinction.’’ There are two accounts of the promise of a son 
to Sarah, ‘‘with an accompanying double explanation of 
the origin of the name Jsaac.’’ In one place Rebekah urges 
Jacob to depart from Canaan ‘‘to escape his brother’s 
anger,’’ and in another ‘‘to procure a wife agreeable to 
his parents’ wishes’’—that is, different motives are as- 
sioned, Two explanations are given of ‘‘the origin of 
the name Bethel’’; ‘‘two of Israel.’’ In 32:3 and 33:16 
‘“Bsau is described as already resident in Edom, while in 
36:6f. his migration thither is attributed to causes which 
could ‘have come into operation only after Jacob’s return 
to Canaan.’’ Then in a footnote he says: ‘‘Keil’s explana- 
tion of this discrepancy is insufficient.’’ 

What becomes of the doctrine of divine inspiration in 
these cases? Would the Holy Spirit, under whose ‘‘con- 
trolling agency’’ ‘‘the whole is subordinated”’ (pine 
and who guided ‘‘the individual writer in the choice and 
disposition of his material’’—would He have led men to 
commit such puerile contradictions and discrepancies? = 

Thus we might go through Driver’s whole book; but we 
drop down almost: at random on page 137, near the bottom, 
where he shows up the contradictions between Dt. and P: 
“Thus (a) in Dt. the centralization of worship at one 
sanctuary is enjoineds it is insisted on with much emphasis 
as an end aimed at, but not yet realized; in P it is presup- 
posed as already existing. (b) In Dt. any member of the 
tribe of Isevi possesses the right to exercise priestly func- 
tions, contingent only upon his residence at the Central 
Sanctuary ; in P this right is strictly limited to the descend- 

* All these apparent discrepancies are effectively dealt with by 
many of the authors named in our ‘‘Selected Bibliography’’ near 


the end of this volume. Cf. especially Keil’s great commentary; 
also the special works of Orr, Green, Tuck, Haley, Torrey, ete. 


A LIBERAL VIEW OF INSPIRATION = 43 


ants of Aaron.’’* Then he goes on to point out with great 
elaboration two more contradictions between Dt. and P. 
What about ‘‘the controlling agency’’ (p. X) of the Holy 
Spirit in these cases? Would the Holy Spirit have con- 
tradicted Himself? 

Just one more sample of Driver’s remarkable concep- 
tion of divine guidance and inspiration. On pages 140-142 
he points out a number of variant representations between 
P and JE, D, and Ez. ‘‘Contrast,’’ he says, ‘‘the geneal- 
ogies in JE (Gen. 4) with those in P (Gen. 5).’’ JE and 
P give variant explanations of ‘‘the growth of sin.’”’ In 
P ‘‘there is also a tendency to treat the history theoret- 
ically.’’ ‘‘Dillman and Kittel seek to explain the contra- 
diction, or silence, of Dt., etc., by the hypothesis that P was 
originally a ‘private document,’ ’’ etc. On page 142: ‘‘The 
contradiction of the pre-exilic literature does not extend 
to the whole of the priests’ code indiscriminately. The 
priests’ code embodies some elements with which the earlier 
literature is in harmony, and which indeed it presupposes; 
it embodies other elements with which the same literature 
is in conflict, and the existence of which it even seems to 
preclude.’’ (The italics are ours.) 

We have not aimed to answer Dr. Driver’s con- 
tentions about contradictions and discrepancies; that has 
been done with ample scholarship and effectiveness by Rob- 
ertson, Green, Orr, Bartlett, Redpath, Watson, Lias, Moel- 
ler, Wiener, and many others. But we believe that we have 
made good our primary contention, namely, that Dr. 
Driver’s critical methods do, in spite of his assertions to 
the contrary, nullify the inspiration of the Old Testament. 
That is the reason, and the chief reason, why we are op- 
posed to those methods; by a logical process they would 
practically destroy the evangelical faith. 


* For an effective answer, see Baxter’s fine work, ‘‘Sanctuary and 
Sacrifice. ’’ 


CHAPTER III 
THE OLD TESTAMENT RELIGION 
Was it a Revelation or an Evolution? 


We have been moved to write this chapter by the reading 
and re-reading of Frederick William Bade’s book, ‘‘The 
Old Testament in the Light of To-day.’’ The book belongs 
to the class of the radical criticism, and is one of the most 
negative works we have ever read. Dr. Bade is the profes- 
sor of Old Testament Literature and Semitic Languages in 
Pacific Theological Seminary, Berkeley, California.* After 
reading all his slashing criticisms of the Old Testament, its 
moral teaching, its theology and its history, we could not 
help wondering why a man holding such views should 
want to be a teacher in a theological school founded by 
Christian people (it was founded by the Congregational- 
ists, though now it is non-denominational), and especially 
why he should want to be a teacher of the Old Testament. 
Students trained for the ministry under such a régime 
surely cannot go out in the world with much of a message. 
The author not only represents the Old Testament as a very 
defective book morally and religiously, even a very wicked 
book in some ways, but also thinks that Christ’s disciples 
corrupted the teachings of their Master after His depar- 
ture from them. Thus it would seem that there is not much 
of the Bible left for the student who graduates from the 

*This chapter was first published in The Lutheran Quarterly for 
October, 1916. 

44 


THE OLD TESTAMENT RELIGION 45 


Pacific Seminary, if he accepts the teaching of Professor 
Bade. ) 

The author’s liberalism is also made obvious from the 
men who have commended his work and to whom he refers 
with ‘‘grateful acknowledgments’’ in his preface. Among 
them are Karl Marti, Dr. Charles F, Aked and Winston 
Churchill, the last the author of ‘‘The Inside of the Cup.’’ 
Besides, a circular from the publishers contains an en- 
thusiastic endorsement of the book by Mr. Churchill. This 
writer of fiction with a theological coloring displays his 
critical depth and intelligence by saying of Dr. Bade’s book, 
‘‘Above all, it is constructive.’? We wonder what Mr. 
Churchill’s ideas of ‘‘constructive’’ teaching are, anyway ; 
for after reading through the book, we are moved to say 
that, according to the author, the Old Testament is about 
as worthless a production as was ever foisted upon a long- 
suffering world. 

The author’s position may also be seen from the list of 
authorities he cites, especially in a footnote on page 88. 
Among them are the following: Budde, Cornill, Kuenen, 
Marti, Oort, Smend, W. R. Smith, H. P. Smith, Stade, 
Steuernagel and Wellhausen. Even though Kuenen’s 
and Stade’s works were published away back in 1877-1887, 
Dr. Bade still cites them as authorities. But throughout 
his whole work he never makes a single allusion to such 
conservative authors as Keil, Delitzsch, Hengstenberg, 
Klostermann, Orelli, Moeller, Cave, Orr, Girdlestone, Ur- 
quhart, Green, McGarvey, Robertson, Wiener, Wilson, et al. 
So completely does he ignore the conservative and evan- 
gelical Old Testament scholars (except to scoff at their 
views and misrepresent them) that the reader would think 
there were so few of them as to be a negligible quantity. 
Compare with this studied avoidance of evangelical writ- 
ers the method of Dr. William Henry Green in his great 
work, ‘‘The Unity of the Book of Genesis,’’ who uses over 


46 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


two pages in citing the books referred to in his volume; 
among them are nearly all the liberal authors from Astrue 
to Kuenen; and, of course, to be fair, he also cites a fine list 
of evangelical scholars. Note also the extensive bibli- 
ography on pages 543-547, over four pages of fine print, in 
Dr. James Orr’s ‘‘The Problem of the Old Testament.”’ 
We simply make these comparisons to show the difference 
between the methods of a radical and a conservative critic. 
Dr. Orr’s list contains nearly every author, conservative 
and liberal, who, up to 1905, had ever done anything note- 
worthy in Old Testament research.* No wonder Dr. Bade 
goes on repeating the old, threadbare objections to the Old 
Testament as if they had not been answered by evangelical 
scholars again and again. 

Our purpose, however, is not to give a general eritique 
of Dr. Bade’s work, but to call attention to his main view- 
point, which forms the keystone to the whole structure he 
has erected, Nowhere does he accept the Old Testament at 
its own estimate, or from its own point of view, but recon- 
structs its whole history to fit it into his own scheme of 
evolution. A number of citations will indicate both the 
spirit and the viewpoint of the author. As we proceed, 
we shall offer some remarks on the quotations. 

In beginning his preface he says that the ‘‘one thing of 
supreme importance, actually and historically, is the idea 
of God.’’ It is tautological to say ‘‘actually and histori- 
cally,’’ for when a thing is historical, it is actual. Then he 
adds concerning the idea of God: ‘‘This idea did not come 
in full feather, nor fall as a bolt from the blue.’”’ Both 
these expressions are slangy, and therefore are not in good 
taste, especially right at the beginning of a work on so 
serious and important a subject. Besides, they are in- 

* Here it might be well to call attention to the great list of con- 
servative Biblical scholars who have written for ‘‘The International 


Standard Bible Encyclopedia,’’ edited by Dr. Orr and others and 
published in 1915. 


THE OLD TESTAMENT RELIGION 4 


tended as a gibe at the orthodox view. But, as is almost 
always the case with the girds of the liberalist, it is an 
untrue representation of the convictions held by conserva- 
tive scholars. Not one of them that we know of has ever 
held that the idea of God ‘‘came in full feather.’’ An 
outstanding principle of conservative historical criticism 
is that the revelation of God in the Bible was progres- 
sive; that God led His people along from point to 
point, making His revelation fuller and fuller all 
the way. Everybody knows, even those who make no pre- 
tense to scholarship, that the Old Testament was prepara- 
tory, and that God unfolded His plan by degrees until the 
‘fullness of time’’ came. So in the second sentence of his 
book Dr. Bade has misrepresented the orthodox position, 
and has set up a man of straw. Not a very promising be- 
ginning for a book which, according to Winston Churchill, 
is ‘‘above all constructive.”’ 

A few sentences further on the author says: ‘‘The 
helpful teacher of the Old Testament now employs the 
higher achievements of Israel’s religion as grave-diggers 
for the defunct moral crudities that have dropped by the 
way. The usual procedure has been to embalm them with 
a ‘Thus saith the Lord,’ and to carry them along until the 
living expire under the dead.”’ 

Here is another fling at both the Bible and orthodoxy. 
Yes, a fling at the Bible, because it contains the expres- 
sion, ‘‘Thus saith the Lord,’’ many times, and Dr. Bade 
will simply have to cast aside all such Biblical announce- 
ments as delusions or impostures. Of course he does 
this without conscience, for wherever the Biblical teach- 
ing contravenes his theory, he simply throws the Biblical 
teaching incontinently overboard. Note, too, how disre- 
spectfully he speaks of some portions of the religion of 
Israel as ‘‘defunct moral crudities.’? No wonder, for aft- 
erward he surely does represent the Old Testament mo- 


48 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


rality as woefully distorted. His fling at orthodoxy con- 
gists in his saying: ‘‘The usual procedure has been to 
embalm those moral crudities.’?’ That is scorn, not ar- 
gument. Conservative scholars embalm no moral crudi- 
ties. They teach that God adapted both His revelation 
and His leading to the unfolding mental and moral capaci- 
ties of His people during their progressive development. 

In the author’s ‘‘Introduction’’ he says: ‘‘Two views 
of the Old Testament still contend for mastery among the 
adherents of Christianity, The one regards it as a sort 
of talisman, miraculously given and divinely authorita- 
tive on the subject of God, religion and morals in every 
part. The other regards it as a growth, in which the 
moral sanctions in each stage of development were suc- 
ceeded and displaced by the next higher one.’’ 

Let us pause a moment to consider this. Wherever the 
author can use a word to cast discredit on the conserva- 
tive view he does not fail to do so. Note the word ‘‘talis- 
man’’ above. Did men like Keil, Hengstenberg, Orr, Cave 
and Green look upon the Bible as a sort of ‘‘talisman’’? 
Is it to be supposed that all the living evangelical theolo- 
gians and ministers and scholarly laymen in our evan- 
gelical churches use the Bible in that way? No; every 
one should know, if every one does not, that they see 
nothing magical in the Bible, nor do they use it for pur- 
poses of superstition. They regard it as a special divine 
revelation—one that the good and holy God gave to man- 
kind for their enlightenment in the way of salvation. To 
impute superstition to such people is to advertise one’s 
lack of acquaintance with them. He also girds at the 
view that the Old Testament was ‘‘miraculously given and 
divinely authoritative.’’ Well, that is what the Book 
claims for itself. If its claim from beginning to end is 
put on a false basis, why does not Dr. Bade simply come 
out as an infidel like Voltaire, Paine or Ingersoll, and re- 


THE OLD TESTAMENT RELIGION 49 


ject it in toto? Why stand up for a Book that is funda- 
mentally false throughout? 

This author will not tolerate the view that any part of 
the Old Testament was given by direct divine revelation 
and inspiration. No, it is a ‘‘growth,’’ a ‘‘human growth,”’’ 
a “‘development of human thought.’’ Let us quote (p. 
18 of the ‘‘Introduction’’): ‘‘With respect to much in 
Hebrew religion the student has done his full duty when 
he has traced its origin and assigned it a place in the de- 
velopment of human thought. There are intellectual con- 
ceptions, moral ideals, motives and rites, which, in spite of 
their divine sanctions, have fortunately forever fallen 
below our moral horizon.’’ Page 19: ‘‘Since religion in 
primitive times was not a body of abstract beliefs, but 
concretely a part of almost all that we would class as gen- 
eral culture in the form of tribal institutions and customs, 
and since primitive culture undeniably has, by a long 
process of evolution, developed into modern civilization, 
it follows inevitably that religion has shared this process 
of progressive development. It passed by stages from the 
erudest expressions of religious instinct, in nature, ances- 
tor and fetish worship, to the exalted form in which it has 
expressed itself in the teachings of Jesus.’’ Page 20: ‘‘No 
less is the history of morality in Hebrew religion a history 
of human growth, which exhibits, on the one hand, a proc- 
ess In man; on the other, a progress in idea and institu- 
tion. The process is the growing fitness of the vehicle of 
revelation. The progress is the growing moral perfec- 
tion of the religion. Needless to say, the conception of 
revelation that underlies this study regards it as an illu- 
mination from within, not as a communication from with- 
out; as an educative, not an instructional, process.’’ On 
page 21 he regards the literary analysis of the partition 
critics as having settled the dates of the various books of 
the Old Testament and also the view of their composite 


50 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


character. Then he adds: ‘‘This knowledge naturally 
has become the basis for a reinterpretation of Hebrew 
morals and religion in terms of development.”’ 

On pages 12 and 13 the author gives his ideas of reve- 
lation. He quotes Trench’s definition, which is as fol- 
lows: ‘‘God’s revelation of Himself is a drawing back of 
the veil or curtain which concealed Him from men; not 
man finding out God, but God discovering Himself to 
man.’’? Then Dr. Bade says: ‘‘ Against the word ‘reve- 
lation’ so understood we wish to enter an early protest. 
Thoughtful men everywhere are abandoning this old con- 
ception, which came in as a correlate to the transcendent 
idea of God, and to a world-view that has been outgrown. 
A God apart from the world was necessarily believed to 
reveal Himself from without, objectively. . . . It is a dif- 
ferent world of thought in which men are now living... . 
The change from transcendence to immanence in our 
thought of God has involved the corresponding transition 
from an objective to a subjective theory of revelation. 
_.. Not through the medium of external agencies, but 
in and through personality does God reveal Himself to 
men.’’ 

Enough quotations have been given to show how utterly 
the author is committed to the theory of evolution, and 
that to him the idea of a direct divine revelation is intol- 
erable. What is to be said respecting this hypothesis? 

The first thing we note is that the whole Old Testament 
history must be manipulated, reversed and reconstructed 
to suit the theory. Instead of accepting the history as it 
stands in the Bible, as tradition has believed it to be 
through all the centuries, and as Josephus substantially 
narrated it, with Genesis leading and the rest of the books 
following in the natural order to make a consecutive nar- 
rative, Dr. Bade,, following the dissecting critics, turns 
the whole- history about. Of Moses (1300-1200 B. C.) 


THE OLD TESTAMENT RELIGION 51 


there are ‘‘no authentic literary remains’’ (p. 22 of the 


Introduction). ‘‘Probably few Old Testament scholars 
would now venture to claim a genuinely Mosaic origin for 
even the smallest literary fragments of the Pentateuch”’ 
(p. 18). ‘‘Early traditions and songs’’ are assigned 
to 1200 to 1000 B. C., and these fragments are part of the 
song of Deborah, David’s lament over Saul, parts of 
Jacob’s blessing, Jotham’s fable, and the speeches of Ba- 
laam. The J document, consisting of ‘‘materials scat- 
tered through the Pentateuch and Joshua,’’ was written 
in 850; the E document is dated 750 B. C.; Amos, Hosea, 
Isaiah (Chapters 1-39) and J and E compiled into a single 
document 650; Micah comes next; D (Deuteronomy), circa 
650-621; JE combined with D, 560; P (Priest code), 550- 
450; Pentateuch completed (JEDP) 420; Daniel 165; 
Esther 150. We have given only a part of this critical 
program, for the author assigns to each book of the Old 
Testament what he regards as its proper place. 

From the foregoing it will be seen that the whole Old 
Testament history is transposed. Instead of treating it as 
it stands in the Bible, each event falling in its proper 
place in consecutive historical order, he splits up the nar- 
rative, assigning one section or paragraph to one date 
and another to another date perhaps centuries later. The 
whole Biblical narrative is thus treated as if it were a 
mosaic, a hodgepodge, instead of an organism. Is there 
in all the world another piece of history or literature that 
has been composed in this way? What would we think of 
an author who would accord such treatment to the history 
of Egypt, Greece, Rome or Mohammedanism? And why is 
all this confusion wrought in the Biblical history? Solely 
in the interest of the author’s pet theory of evolution. 
According to that theory, the exalted teaching about God 
in the opening chapter of Genesis, His unity, His crea- 
tion of the universe, etc., could not have been conceived in 


52 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


the primitive times; therefore that narrative must be 
brought down to a late date in order to fit into the evolu- 
tionary program. Is that historical criticism? Is it not 
rather manipulating the historical data in order to make it 
fit into a preconceived and subjective theory? Whatever 
may be said of this method, it is not scientific, for the in- 
ductive method, which is the scientific method, first takes 
into account all the facts as it finds them, and then formu- 
lates its theory. We accuse Dr. Bade, and the whole 
Wellhausen school to which he belongs, of using the a 
priort method, in spite of all their pretensions to using 
the inductive or a posteriori method. It is a clear case 
of what the Greeks would have called a hysteron proteron 
—of putting the conclusion before the premises. 

We wish here to emphasize the fact that Dr. Bade’s 
mode of treatment means a decisive rejection of the testi- 
mony of the Bible itself. He will not have it that God ever 
directly manifested Himself to any of the Old Testa- 
ment characters, Everything, according to Bade, is simply 
the evolution of subjective human ideas. If God ever made 
any revelation of Himself or His will, He did it merely 
through the imperfect subjective impressions of men, who 
made many mistakes of a very serious nature. By the 
way, that would be a queer kind of divine revelation ! 
But what is the testimony of the Bible on this point? Does 
it teach that God revealed Himself directly or only by 
means of subjective experiences? Every Bible reader will 
tell you the former, The Bible says God spoke directly to 
Adam and Eve, to Cain, to Noah, Abraham, Isaac, J acob, 
Moses, Samuel, and all the prophets. If there is anything 
plain and outstanding in the Bible, it is that God gave 
special objective revelations of Himself at intervals 
throughout the whole Old Testament history. 

‘‘Oh! but that is all a mistake of the writers of the va- 
rious documents!’’ asserts the critic. ‘‘ Hither they credu- 


THE OLD TESTAMENT RELIGION 53 


lously accepted the traditions and myths of the primitive 
times or else they purposely colored the narratives.”’ 

All right, then. That indicates the precise position of 
the critic. He pointedly rejects the explicit testimony of 
the Bible. His quarrel, then, is with the Bible. Why 
not just come out and say so? Why turn upon orthodox 
theologians, as if they were responsible for putting the 
Bible in its present form? Whether such a critic has the 
truth on his side or not, he ought to be classified as an un- 
believer rather than as an evangelical theologian. 

However, what is the bearing of the critic’s own theory 
on the doctrine of evolution? It eviscerates it, and for 
this reason: Suppose, as the critic maintains, the view 
of a direct revelation of God belongs to a very crude and 
primitive age, the age of mythology; and suppose, again, 
that the Pentateuch was not completed until circa 420 
B. C.; then we want to ask why, in the name of reason 
and common sense, the advanced editors, whoever they 
were, did not eliminate the narratives of direct revela- 
tions and miracles, and tell the people that the whole his- 
tory of the world and of Israel was merely the result of 
‘‘the development of human thought?’’ Hither they knew 
that the history they were giving the people was untrue, 
or they did not know it. If they thought they were 
writing the truth, when it was not the truth, what becomes 
of the theory of evolution? At so late a date evolution 
should have had a more enlightening effect upon them. 
Instead of that, they actually thought they were reciting 
a true narrative of God’s direct revelations to His people. 
If they knew that the traditional belief was not true, they 
imposed a mendacious history and world-view upon their 
fellow-Jews; and the people accepted their representation 
as a special revelation from God! Again we ask why evo- 
lution did not clear the minds of the people at so late a 
date as 420 B. C. of those simple and primitive ideas of a 


54 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


God who made a direct revelation? Surely evolution 
proved itself to be a very deficient teacher. But that is not 
all. Even in the time of Christ, the Jews and Christ Him- 
self believed that the Old Testament contained a true nar- 
rative of a special divine revelation. And even to-day 
there are millions of Jews and Christians who hold firmly 
to the view of a special divine revelation in the Old Testa- 
ment. If this is all that evolution can do, its effectiveness 
is surely very questionable. 

Yet it is on account of this very theory of evolution 
that the critics assign most of the Old Testament com- 
position to a late date, so that they can give development 
plenty of time to develop! We insist on knowing why 
the editors and redactors of 600-420 B. C. did not con- 
struct the history and religion of the Pentateuch and the 
other Biblical books prior to their time according to the 
theory of evolution instead of according to the primitive 
and traditional view. We will tell you just why: The 
theory of evolution is not the true view. It is illogical. 
It is built on the wrong foundation. It is based on false 
premises and non sequitur modes of reasoning. 

Now, this is the main proposition to be proved—that 
evolution is a futile theory, is not adequate to its task, 
and is disproved by history, science and religion. Sup- 
pose we look at the history of nations. Go back in the 
annals of almost all the nations of the earth—those that 
have any annals and have left any archeological remains 
—and what do you find? Evidences of a high civiliza- 
tion, Note what is being found in Egypt, Babylonia, 
Palestine, Greece, Rome. Pyramids, palaces, aqueducts, 
towers, monuments, cuneiform tablets, legal codes—all 
these bear testimony that nations long before the historic 
period began outside of the Bible were wonderfully ad- 
vanced in the arts of enlightenment. Even in Turkestan 


THE OLD TESTAMENT RELIGION 55 


recent explorations have unearthed the remains of great 
cities, with their telltale evidences of a marvelous an- 
cient civilization. The same kind of discoveries have been 
made among the ruins of the Aztecs of Mexico, the Tol- 
tees of Central America and the Incas of Peru. Some of 
us can remember how Wendell Phillips was wont to thrill 
us with his lecture on ‘‘The Lost Arts.’’ Some of the arts 
of these ancient civilizations are ‘‘lost’’ even to the pres- 
ent day. Therefore we maintain that the story of na- 
tions, so far as it can be traced by both history and arche- 
ology, does not point to a period of primeval savagery, but 
the reverse. And that fact invalidates the theory of evo- 
lution. 

The like is true of the history of religion. It is a well 
known fact, brought out by Max Miller, Orr, Fairbairn and 
many other writers, that the further back you trace most of 
the ethnic religions, the more nearly they approach to pure 
monotheism. The discovery of the Egyptian ‘‘Book of 
the Dead,’’ the most ancient bit of Egyptian literature 
yet found, corroborates this statement, for it shows that 
the most ancient ritual of that nation asserted the view 
of only one God. A similar claim can be upheld for the 
religions of India, China and Persia. The evolutionists 
often aver that the primitive religion of mankind was 
fetichism or animism. This cannot be proved. There 
is not one example on record of a nation that has evolved 
by its own efforts from animism through polytheism to 
monotheism. On this point we quote from Principal 
Fairbairn, who, in speaking of the evolutionists, says: 
‘‘They assume a theory of development that has not a 
single historical instance to verify it. Examples are 
wanted of people who have grown, without foreign influ- 
ence, from atheism to Fetichism, and from it through 
the intermediate stages into Monotheism; and until such 
examples be given, hypotheses claiming to be ‘Natural 


56 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


Histories of Religion’ must be judged as hypotheses still’’ * 

Here is also a relevant passage from Dr. James Orr’s 
‘‘The Christian View of God and the World,’’ page 75: 
‘Volkmar has remarked that of monotheistic religions 
there are only three in the world—the Israelitish, the 
Christian and the Mohammedan; and the last named is 
derived from the other two. . . . This limitation of Mono- 
theism in religion to the peoples who have benefited by 
the Biblical teaching on this subject suggests its origin 
from a higher than human source; and refutes the con- 
tention of those who would persuade us that the mono- 
theistic idea is the result of a long process of development 
through which the race necessarily passes, beginning with 
Fetichism, or perhaps Ghost-worship, mounting to Poly- 
theism, and ultimately subsuming the multitude of divine 
powers under one all-controlling will. It will be time 
enough to accept this theory when, outside the line of the 
Biblical development, a single nation can be pointed to 
which has gone through these stages and reached this goal.” 
We would also refer the reader to Dr. Orr’s pertinent 
notes on pages 409-414; also to Dr. Tisdall’s two scholarly 
books, ‘‘Christianity and Other Faiths’’ and ‘‘Compara- 
tive Religion’’; Valentine’s ‘‘Natural Theology’’ is very 
good on this thesis. 

Let us look at the facts without prejudice. There is 
plenty of evidence in history and archeology of the de- 
generation of both civilization and religion. The decay and 
disappearance of nations afford abundant proof. There is 
not one instance of any people advancing by its own efforts 
from the lower forms of religion to the higher. On the 
other hand, the evidence all points to the fact that the 
further back we pursue our historical study of religions, 
the more nearly they approach the monotheistic concep- 
tion. These things being true, what is the most adequate 


* «¢Studies in the Philosophy of Religion,’’ p. 12. 


THE OLD TESTAMENT RELIGION 67 


theory to account for all the facts? It would be that the 
original idea of God was monotheism, and that the lower 
and baser religious conceptions are decadent forms. We 
do not need to have the Bible to prove that sin, supersti- 
tion and spiritual darkness are in the world, and these 
would account for the human tendency to degeneration in 
religion, At all events, such a tendency is an outstanding 
empirical fact. Even in Christian lands there are periods 
of religious decline. All forms and ideas, however pure at 
first, are liable to become perverted and perfunctory. By 
simply accepting facts as we find them in all the world, 
we see that the conception of primitive monotheism and 
the tendency to deterioration afford the most adequate 
theory. And with this empirical fact the teaching of the 
Bible agrees fully. In the beginning God revealed Him- 
self as the one true God; but sin came into the world, and 
men degenerated, and fell into lower and lower forms of 
superstition. To this tendency to idolatry the Jews were 
also subject, and it was only by special revelations of Him- 
self that God was able to keep alive in the world the true 
original monotheistic religion. Here is a view that is ade- 
quate, that tallies with the facts, and that therefore is ge 
only scientific hypothesis.* 

In the next place, we will proceed to convict Dr. Bade 
out of his writings of disloyalty to his own theory of evolu- 
tion. He calls Amos and Hosea ‘‘pioneers of a new era’’ 
and Isaiah (Chapters 1-39) ‘‘the prophet of holiness.’’ 
The first two came very near, at times at least, to preach- 
ing true monotheism, and both they and Isaiah proclaimed 
a very high type of morality. Of course, according to the 
modern critic, they had not thrown off the shackles en- 
tirely ; yet they were comparatively free from the monola- 

* This is not a mere argument deus ex machina, but is a conclusion 
based on the legitimate induction of facts, as above indicated. Such 


induction cannot rightly be scoffed at as a ‘‘cutting of the Gordian 
knot.’’ 


58 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


try and ritualism of the rest of the Jews. Now note: 
According to Bade, Amos and Hosea prophesied 750-735 
B. C. and Isaiah 740-700. However, the Priests’ Code 
(P), including Leviticus, etc., was not written until 550- 
450—that is, from 200 to 300 years after the prophets 
named above. Yet the Priest’s Code was a reversion to the 
ritualism that had been so severely condemned by those 
prophets! Here, according to Bade himself, there was 
deterioration instead of evolution. If evolution did not 
hold its own in the times of Amos, Hosea, Isaiah and Ezra, 
what good reason have the critics for insisting on its hay- 
ing been the dominating law in the composition of Genesis 
and the rest of the Pentateuch? The whole theory seems 
to be lacking in empirical support. 

In another way our critic invalidates his development 
theory. He holds that the later prophets got away from 
the idea of a direct revelation of God, and held to the view 
which Bade himself champions, namely, that God operates 
only immanently through the conceptions of men. Well, 
those prophets wrote from 750 to 460 B. C. (circa, of 
course, for everything is guess work). But, lo and behold! 
the Pentateuch was not completed until (circa) 420 B. C., 
40 years after the last of the prophets. And now these 
final editors and redactors of the Pentateuch, writing 
nearly a half century after the last of the prophets and 
more than three centuries after the first, did not construct 
it according to the high ideals of immanent revelation held 
by the prophets, but actually throughout the whole book 
represented God as given direct and objective manifesta- 
tions. Worse yet for the theory of evolution, the concep- 
tions of the Pentateuchal redactors prevailed in Israel. 
Here is surely an acute case of degeneration. According 
to Bade’s own representation, therefore, the evolution the- 
ory did not work in the history of the Israelitish nation. 

Bade also argues that Amos and Hosea came very near 


THE OLD TESTAMENT RELIGION 59 


teaching pure monotheism, and denounced the narrow 
Jahvism (the idea that Jehovah was only a national god) 
of the Israelites prior to that time. But these prophets 
flourished 750-735 B. C. Two hundred years later the 
Priests’ Code was written, and was accepted by Israel; 
yet this code inculeated the old crude Jahvism or monol- 
atry instead of the advanced theism of the prophets. 
Another case of reversion instead of evolution. If evolu- 
tion does not serve the disintegrating critics better than 
this, what advantage has it over the evangelical view? 

But we convict our author once more out of his own 
book of being untrue to his favorite hypothesis. On pages 
7-10 he tries to prove that Christ Himself was a critic of 
the Old Testament, rejecting portions of its teaching, and 
substituting a higher and truer view. We think he mis- 
represents Christ here, but that is not the point just now.” 
Then on page 10 Dr. Bade adds: ‘‘Passing on to the 
apostles, one finds, strangely enough, that they narrowed 
the scope of criticism, if they did not deny it altogether. 
They apparently accepted the moral criticism applied to 
the Old Testament by Jesus, but they also believed in the 
literal inspiration of the text. A thorough comprehension 
and acceptance of Jesus’ principles would have prevented 
the apostles from binding themselves and their converts 
once more to the letter of the Jewish Scriptures. They did 
not, could not, fully comprehend.”’ 

That is, here again evolution would not work. It should 
have enabled the apostles to go right forward developing 
Christ’s higher critical ideas and principles. Instead 
of evolution, there was reversion here once more. The 
apostles went back to the Old Testament conception of an 
objective revelation instead of the nebulous ‘‘immanent”’ 
unfolding of ‘‘human thought.’’ The apostles should not 


*This subject is dealt with in Chapter IX of this volume: 
‘¢Christ’s Witness to the Old Testament.’’ 


60 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


have been so stubborn. More than that, they proved Christ 
(whom Bade seems to want to accept as a true teacher) 
to be a false prophet, for He promised that the Holy Spirit 
would ‘‘lead them into all truth.’? Why did not the im- 
manent Spirit of God lead them immanently in the right 
and the promised way, the all-prevailing way of evolution? 
Even the Holy Spirit became obstinate! 

We have shown that the history of nations, their civiliza- 
tions and religions disprove the hypothesis of evolution. 
So does human biography. Here we need not take the 
Bible as our guide, but need only to glance at the pages 
of secular history. In Greece most of the truly great men 
came too soon for the theory of evolution. Homer, who 
flourished about 1000 B. C., had no contemporaries or suc- 
cessors who were his equals in epic poetry. He should 
have been obliging enough to wait for evolution to develop 
him at the proper psychological moment. And there are 
Pericles, the greatest in statesmanship ; Euripides, in tragic 
poetry; Phidias, in sculpture; Demosthenes, in oratory, 
and that triumvirate of philosophers, Socrates, Plato and 
Aristotle—all of them came prematurely, and so do not fit 
into the evolution hypothesis; for they were born, lived, 
wrought and died, without leaving successors who were 
their equals. The same may be said of Rome with her 
Cicero, Seneca and Marcus Aurelius. Other nations gave 
the world its Shakespeare, Milton, Goethe, Schiller, Wash- 
ington and Lincoln long before the strategic moment had 
come to prove the pet theory of the day to be a verified 
hypothesis. Human history is a rather recalcitrant pupil 
in the school of evolution. 

It is interesting to note that Biblical history follows in 
this respect the same régime as secular history. Here and 
there recur conspicuous characters as beacon lights for the 
rest of the world, standing almost alone in the sphere of 
spirituality—Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Isaiah; 


THE OLD TESTAMENT RELIGION 61 


then in the New Testament Christ came ‘‘in the fullness 
of time’’ according to the divine plan, but, if evolution is 
true, very much out of season. In this respect Biblical 
and secular history coincide—they do not display a uni- 
form progressive process, but exhibit individuals who stand 
head and shoulders above their contemporaries and describe 
alternating periods of civil and religious advance and 
decline. 

Thus we think we have shown that the religion of Israel 
cannot be accounted for on the theory of mere psycho- 
logical evolution. That hypothesis is not adequate, and is 
therefore unscientific. If evolution must be given up, what 
view shall we accept? We know of only one view that is 
adequate, and that is, the Bible is a divine revelation, as it 
claims to be. Since evolution has proved itself insufficient, 
it is no longer necessary to rearrange the books of the Old 
Testament or reconstruct its history, but we can simply let 
everything stand as we find it in the Bible. 

Suppose now, instead of being atomistic and picayunish 
in our criticism, we take the large, the comprehensive view 
of the Biblical system as a Weltanschauung, and see 
whether it is not rational, and at the same time so wonder- 
ful a scheme as to afford a presumption that it must be an 
especially revealed plan. First, there is the idea of God 
as the personal Creator as set forth in the first and second 
chapters of Genesis. How marvelous it is that any one 
living in that remote age should be able to get such a con- 
ception! There is not another cosmogony in the world 
that begins with God as a personal Being and the Creator 
of the cosmos. All heathen cosmogonies represent the gods 
as coming from the world or the primordial impersonal 
essence of things. How does it happen that the Bible alone 
of all ancient books gives us this clear monotheistic con- 
ception, and the view of God as the Creator? Even the 
wisest philosophers of Greece and Rome did not rise to 


62 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


this exalted conception. The only sufficient way to account 
for the amazing fact is that God Himself revealed the truth 
to some one; and that is what the Bible teaches. 

The creation of man in the divine image is another won- 
derful idea that man could not have discovered by his own 
thinking. Remarkable, too, is the conception that he was 
ereated a free moral agent, with power to choose between 
good and evil. Here is an ethical view of man that will 
account for all the facts of history. When man fell into 
sin by his own volition, what human ingenuity could have 
devised or discovered a plan by which he might be rescued 
by divine love and mercy, without setting aside and dis- 
honoring the divine and eternal law of justice? Yet we 
find all the Old Testament history and symbolism leading 
up to ‘‘the fullness of time’’ when God sent His Son, “‘born 
of a woman, born under the law, that He might redeem 
them that were under the law.’’ Thus, according to this 
profound world-view, God was ‘‘able to be just and the 
justifier of every one that believeth on His Son.’’ The 
Old Testament begins with Paradise formed and lost; the 
New Testament ends with Paradise restored and regained. 
So the Bible is all one great unified plan, comprehending 
all facts, all needs, all aspirations, all moral and spiritual 
imperatives. Could so marvelous and profound a scheme 
ever have been the mere evolution of human thinking? 
We do not believe it. It has been divinely revealed. In 
this connection we would reécho the inspired conception of 
the prophet (Isa. 55:8, 9): ‘‘For my thoughts are not 
your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith 
Jehovah. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, 
so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts 
than your thoughts.’’ 


CHAPTER IV 
THE MORAL CHARACTER OF THE OLD TESTAMENT JEHOVAH 
A Defense of It Against an Assailant 


‘‘A FORMER generation called into question chiefly the 
historical difficulties presented by the traditional view’’ of 
the Old Testament. ‘‘The present generation is troubled 
by the crudities of its moral implications, and by what 
Matthew Arnold rather severely characterized as ‘its in- 
sane license of affirmation about God.’ ”’ 

The above is a quotation from one of the latest books 
belonging to the class of the radical Biblical criticism. We 
again refer to William Frederick Bade’s ‘‘The Old Testa- 
ment in the Light of To-day,’’ some features of which 
we reviewed in the preceding chapter. The book is of the 
most negative sort. What its author says by way of criti- 
cism of the religion and morality of the Old Testament 
amounts to an arraignment. If the Old Testament is such 
a book as Dr. Bade represents it to be, it surely is unfit. 

However, the trouble, we believe, is with the author, not 
with the Bible. His destructive criticism of the Old Testa- 
ment is due to several preconceptions that are funda- 
mentally wrong. First, he looks at the Bible purely from 
the secular viewpoint, and is lacking in spiritual apprecia- 
tion of its character ; second, he will not interpret the Bible 
from its own point of view and in its own light, but solely 
from the ethnic viewpoint; third, he is so obsessed with the 
theory of evolution that he twists, distorts and reconstructs 

63 


64 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


the Biblical history and teaching to fit his theory; fourth, 
he seems to be afflicted with a feeling of resentment against 
orthodoxy and traditional views. For these reasons he 
simply goes through the Bible with his rationalistie blade, 
picks out what he thinks objectionable, magnifies and mis 
construes it, and then proceeds to hack it to pieces. 

Now, had we the space, we might take the book section 
by section, and show its illogical character, its specious 
reasoning, and its harmful teaching. But in this article 
we shall confine our remarks to Chapter III, in which the 
author tries to portray the moral character of Jahveh 
(which is the same as Jehovah in our English versions) as 
he finds it set forth in the ‘‘early literature’’—that is, the 
JE “‘material scattered through the Pentateuch and 
Joshua.’? Of the ‘‘JE traditions’? he says (p. 54): 
‘We shall now use them as direct sources for the period 
which extends from the time of Deborah to that of Amos, 
from 1200 to 750 B. C.’’ It should be remembered that, 
according to Bade’s dissecting criticism, this is the earliest 
Hebrew literature, and even this, especially that of the 
tenth and eleventh centuries, is far from reliable. Of 
Moses he says there are ‘‘no authentic literary remains,” 
though he does not say why, but depends on the say-so of 
his critical masters, Kuenen, Stade, Budde, Wellhausen and 
Marti. So it is from these so-called ‘‘JE traditions’’ that 
our analyst tries to glean a true portrait of the moral char- 
acter of Jahveh. 

And who was Jahveh, according to Bade? A mere na- 
tional deity, a tribal God, a clan-deity. He was ‘‘the God 
of Palestine alone, being more or less localized at sanc- 
tuaries within its borders, and consequently an intra- 
mundane deity.’’ He ‘‘was the God of Israel alone, being 
concerned solely about the welfare of his Israelite wor- 
shipers and the retention of their exclusive homage.’’ 
‘‘He is, therefore, a national deity—an ardent partisan on 


—— ee a a 


THE OLD TESTAMENT JEHOVAH 65 


behalf of his clients when they are loyal, and destructively 
resentful when they pay homage to rival deities. Within 
the boundaries established by these two controlling ideas 
practically the entire religious thought of the period 
moves, ’’ 

These quotations are literal, and are found on page 56. 
From one who holds such ideas of the theological and 
ethical teaching of the Old Testament you may know what 
to expect. Sometime we may be able to consider Dr. Bade’s 
absurd representations of Jahvism and Monoj ahvism, which 
he sets forth in other chapters of his books; * but just now 
we shall confine our observations to his aa on the moral 
character of the J ehovah of the Old Testament. We must 
also limit ourself to his presentations in Chapter III. We 
begin with statements on page 65: ‘Apparently it was 
the physical limitations of Jahveh which, in the thought of 
ancient Israel, sometimes made him act from unworthy 
motives. We find in the early traditions no assured con- 
viction that God uses his power only for moral ends. The 
self-regarding motives with which the early writers endow 
him often betray him into unethical actions. Hence the 
possession of great power on his part was to them a source 
of fear rather than comfort, for they thought he used it 
more often to avenge personal affronts than to enforce 
obedience to the moral customs of the time.’’ 

This quotation is a fair sample of Dr, Bade’s way of 
representing Jehovah. Whenever He punishes the sinner, 
Dr. Bade thinks He does it out of petty personal resent- 
ment. In this way Dr. Bade simply reads his own ideas of 
Jehovah into the sacred narrative. A specious method he 
employs is to attribute the people’s wrong notions of God 
to God Himself; therefore he fails to distinguish between 
what God Himself commands and sanctions and what im- 
perfect men attribute to Him. This confusion vitiates his 


* This has been at least partly done in Chapter V of this volume. 


66 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


whole book. Let us see whether God does not act from 
purely moral ends. According to Dr. Bade, one of the 
‘CTH traditions’’ is the history of Cain and Abel. When 
Cain’s offering was not accepted, he became wroth. Now 
note what Jehovah said to Cain: ‘‘Why art thou wroth? 
and why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest well, 
shall it not be lifted up? and if thou doest not well, sin 
coucheth at the door, and unto thee shall be its desire; but 
do thou rule over it.’’ This is according to the American 
revised version. If this narrative, and particularly the 
part of the conversation attributed to J ehovah, does not 
show true and deep ethical insight, we do not know where 
genuine ethics is to be found. It proves that God was not 
satisfied with mere outward forms of worship, and that the 
secret of Cain’s ethical failure was sin couching at the 
door, like a panther ready to leap upon its victim and 
destroy it. Then comes the deeply ethical injunction, ‘‘ But 
do thou rule over it.’’ Which means, ‘‘You should be mas- 
ter of yourself; you should conquer the sin that seeks the 
rule over you.’’? Why did not this critic call attention to 
this ethical passage? Because it did not fit in with the 
ease he wanted to make out against ‘‘Jahveh.”’ 

Take one of the earliest J documents. (We do not be- 
lieve in the partition theory of the radical critics, but we 
use their own terminology now and then for the sake of 
brevity, and to convict them out of their own mouths, as it 
were.) The passage we refer to is Gen. 6:9, which reads: 
‘¢And Jehovah saw, that the wickedness of man was great 
in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of 
his heart was only evil continually.’’ Then, on account of 
this very wickedness, and not for arbitrary reasons, He 
decided to destroy mankind with a flood. Does not this 
passage indicate deep and penetrating ethical insight? 
There could be no way of expressing real inner moral 
obliquity more incisively than the clause, ‘‘Hivery imagina- 


THE OLD TESTAMENT JEHOVAH i 67 


tion of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” 
It goes as deep as Ps. 51: 6, Prov. 21: 2, Jer. 31: 33, Matt. 
5: 8, or Heb. 4: 12. Yet it is found away back there in 
the ‘‘J document.’’ Why did not our critic cite this 
passage? It did not suit his purpose. 

Our author has no reverence for the sacred Scriptures. 
On the margin of our copy of his book we have felt com- 
pelled to write the word ‘‘sacrilege’’ a number of times. 
Wherever he can use an ugly word he does so—almost any 
word to cast derogation and contumely on the Biblical 
records. For instance, he calls the people of Jahveh His 
‘“clients,’’ as if He were a sort of petty lawyer. Reverent 
folk call the Israelites ‘‘God’s chosen people.’’ Something 
which Jehovah had forbidden this irreverent critic says 
was ‘‘tabooed.’’ He knows well enough that the word 
‘‘taboo’’ carries the idea of crass superstition and pagan- 
ism. Note this (p. 47): ‘‘More often than not the 
offense consisted in the breaking of some taboo like that of 
the tree in the garden of Eden.’’ What does the reverent 
believer think of such handling of Biblical material? The 
forbidden things in the ceremonial law were ‘‘ ceremonial 
taboos.’’. Uzzah, when he touched the ark, had ‘‘violated 
a taboo’’ (both of these on p. 66). But what does the 
reader think of this (p. 65), referring to Jehovah’s ex- 
pressed fear lest Adam and Eve, after the fall, should eat 
of the tree of life? ‘‘In other words,’’ says our lampooner, 
‘‘the tree possesses a magical virtue which is independent 
of Jahveh’s will or power.’’ (The Italics ours.) Instead 
of seeing the profound ethical and spiritual depth of 
Jehovah’s language, this shallow author can do nothing but 
put such a miserable construction upon it. We cannot help 
feeling that this writer affords a clear illustration of what 
is written in Prov. 8:36: ‘‘But he that sinneth against 
me wrongeth his own soul.’’ The ‘‘me’’ in this text means 


68 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


that true spiritual wisdom whose beginning is ‘‘the fear 
of the Lord.’’ 

Wherever this professor of Old Testament literature in a 
theological seminary can cast a slur at the Biblical repre- 
sentations of God, he does not hesitate to do so. He isa 
past master at reading a bad or an absurd meaning into 
the language of the Bible. Here are some examples on 
page 64: ‘‘But even these expressions do not disguise the 
fact that the ancient Hebrew thought of God as overcoming 
resistance with effort, and as feeling exasperation over the 
thwarting of his plans.’’ Notice that he represents God as 
a petulant being. A reverent scholar would call God’s 
anger at sin righteous indignation. Not so Bade; with 
him it is ‘‘ feeling exasperation.’’ Then he goes on: ‘‘The 
latter was due in part to the assumed limitations of his 
knowledge. In order to find a mate for Adam he first 
engaged in a futile experiment with animals.’’ Here we 
cannot help exclaiming, For shame! for shame! This is the 
same calumny that Mr. Ingersoll used to proclaim. <A small 
and cavilling spirit might read such a purpose into the 
brief narrative in Gen. 2:18-20; but no one who is able 
to take a comprehensive view of the whole Biblical system 
would ever do so. The Genetical story says that God 
brought the animals ‘‘unto man to see what he would call 
them,’’ not to see whether he could find a mate for man 
among them. Then it says that ‘‘the man gave names to all 
the cattle, and to the birds of the heavens, and to every 
beast of the field.’’ ‘To this it adds, ‘‘But for man there 
was not found a helpmate for him.’’ A mean, petty, carp- 
ing spirit might read into the language what Dr. Bade 
does, but the subsequent narrative shows that the trans- 
action was not an ‘‘experiment’’ with God. Far from it; 
the purpose was to show man that he belonged to a higher 
order of creatures than the non-rational animals gathered 
around him; to prove to him that the evolutionary theory 


THE OLD TESTAMENT JEHOVAH 69 


is not correct—that he was not a monkey nor the relative of 
a monkey! Then what did Jehovah do? Precisely what was 
worthy of Himself and the man who had been made in His 
own image. He proceeded to make a helpmate for man; a 
being who was rational and human like himself; and, 
beautiful to contemplate, instead of forming her out of 
another portion of the ground, he took her from the physi- 
eal and psychical being of man himself, so that the con- 
genitality and solidarity of the human race might be pre- 
served, and man might know forever that woman was 
‘‘bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh.’’? Who that has a 
true human heart pulsing in him would want to have it 
otherwise? In biology the cell divides itself, and the cell 
that comes from it is like it because it is organically a part 
of it. So with man and woman. Ah, yes! when God 
brought the animals to Adam to be named, and thus to 
prove to him his superiority over the animal creation, He 
knew precisely what He was going to do. When the man 
waked up from his ‘‘deep sleep,’’ and saw the woman 
standing before him, he saw that God had done right. But 
the evolutionist, who thinks that man descended from the 
animal creation, ought to be the last man in the world to 
find fault with the God of the Bible, even if He had tried 
an ‘‘experiment’’; for, according to that view, both man 
and woman were once animals. 

Bade again: ‘‘Disappointment over the corruption of 
mankind ‘grieved him at his heart’ (Gen. 6:6 (J) ); so 
that he resolved upon the destruction of his handiwork.”’ 
Note the constant innuendoes. The critic seems to think 
the expression, ‘‘grieved Him at His heart,’’ a crude and 
anthropomorphic mode of representing God. We do not 
see why. How does Dr. Bade want God to feel over the 
sins of His rational creatures? Does he want Him to sit 
coldly upon His throne, unmoved by sin and its havoc? 
Christ represented God as so loving the world as to give 


70 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


His only begotten Son. Is not such love akin to grief. 
Did not Christ ‘‘feel compassion’’ toward the multitude? 
Did He not weep at the grave of Lazarus and over stricken 
Jerusalem? And whatever Dr. Bade thinks of the doctrine 
of Christ’s person, he certainly must believe that He mani- 
fested the heart and love of God to the world. So God 
must have feeling. He is not a mere cold Monad. He 
made man in His own image, according to the Scriptures, 
and since man is moved by feelings of grief, indignation 
and love, God must have kindred emotions, only in infinite 
degree and perfection. Therefore, in spite of the infidel 
sneer, we maintain that the God of feeling in the Old ‘Testa- 
ment is the same as the God of feeling portrayed in the 
New. 

Notice the keen rapier-like thrust of the critic: ‘‘so that 
he resolved upon the destruction of his handiwork.’’ Now 
what does the Bible teach? As clearly as day that it was 
on account of the extreme wickedness of the people that 
He determined to destroy them. It was not because He 
took “pleasure in the death of the wicked,’’ for He wants 
them to ‘‘turn unto Him and live.’’ The fact of the matter 
is, the wickedness of his people ‘‘grieved Him at His 
heart.’? And why did He destroy them? The only rem- 
edy for desperate and diabolic corruption is destruction. 
In the long run their sins by natural processes would have 
destroyed them, anyway. In one way or another sin will 
always destroy its votaries. ‘‘And sin, when it is full- 
grown, bringeth forth death’’ (Jas. 1: 15). See also Isa. 
59: 1, 2. | 

The old infidel objection, exploited by Paine and Inger- 
soll, about Uzzah and the ark of the covenant is brought 
forward by this critic (p. 66). Observe how he puts it: 
‘‘Uzzah, with the best intention, put forth his hand to keep 
it (the ark) from falling off the cart at a point where the 
oxen became restive.’’ ‘‘With the best intention’’ is cun- 


OO EN, 


THE OLD TESTAMENT JEHOVAH V1 


ningly thrust in to show that Uzzah was not to blame, and 
therefore that the Jehovah of Israel acted unjustly in slay- 
ing Uzzah. ‘‘Whether the realization that he had violated 
a taboo induced heart-failure or a stroke of apoplexy, is 
impossible to tell,’’ the critic pursues. ‘‘In any case sud- 
den death overtook him, and this fact required explana- 
tion. The one which the Biblical writer offers is surpris- 
ingly unethical, but quite in accord with contemporary 
superstitions about Jahveh and the ark.’’ Similarly, 
David was afraid of Jahveh that day. ‘‘He distrusted his 
mood,’’ says this critic. Therefore, David did not take the 
ark to Jerusalem, but elsewhere, and awaited ‘‘a change in 
Jahveh’s temper.’’ In this way Dr. Bade goes on and on, 
casting contempt on Jahveh by sly innuendoes. 

However, we must be patient, and try once more to 
‘vindicate the ways of God to man,’’ as has been done so 
often in the past by evangelical apologists and commenta- 
tors, whose masterly works should have been read and 
heeded before a professor in a theological school wrote so 
destructive a work as the one in question. According to 
the Scriptures, the ark was a sacred vessel, a symbol of 
God’s presence, holiness and grace. Its form, arrange- 
ment and contents typified deep spiritual realities. In 
those days more symbols were needed than ‘to-day, for it 
was the childhood of the race and the period of preparation 
for the clearer revelation that was to be made ‘‘in the 
fullness of time.’’ Even now the most advanced Christians 
are helped in their conceptions of God by object teaching 
and in their worship by sacred symbolism. For this reason 
we have Baptism and the Eucharist in the New Testament 
dispensation. (Of course, Lutherans hold that the sacra- 
ments are not mere symbols, but chiefly means of grace.) 
Our churches have the cross, the altar, the chancel arrange- 
ment, pictures, and all of them are suggestive of spiritual 
realities while we are here in the flesh, subject to local 


G2 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


limitations and the perceptions of the sense. If all this 
typology is helpful to-day, why was not the typology 
divinely commanded in the Old Testament helpful to God’s 
ancient people in a dimmer age? They surely could not 
think of God as the absolute Being, for no one even to-day 
has a clear conception of such a Being. God could not 
have accommodated Himself more graciously, fittingly and 
pedagogically than by using earthly objects as types of 
heavenly and abstract realities. This He did in the Old 
Testament dispensation. 

Of all the sacred symbols the most holy was the ark of 
the covenant in the Holy of Holies. Here God, as it were, 
condescendingly localized Himself. He had to do so, if 
He desired to reveal Himself at all. Even to-day, if He 
reveals Himself in our hearts, there is a true sense in which 
He must put Himself in relation with time and space. 
Why then should we be so hypercritical when the Bible 
represents Him in the same way? We speak to-day about 
God ‘‘coming and going.’? If a man is given up to apos- 
tasy we say, ‘‘God has forsaken him.’? We do not mean 
that God has withdrawn His essence from him, but His 
Saving grace. Somehow, we sense the true meaning in all 
such figurative language, 

Now, the ark was not a ‘‘taboo.’? Shame on the man 
who has such erude, unspiritual ideas! It was a sacred 
symbol of God’s holy presence. That is the way the Bible 
represents it. Being sacred, it was to be held SO; it was to 
be treated with veneration. God had to teach His people 
the spirit of reverence and awe. Is it not right that people 
should have such feelings inculeated in them, and especially 
toward God? Or does our critic think it would be better 
for people to have no reverence for sacred things? Our 
observation has been that reverent people are not wicked 
and base, but irreverent people usually are. Perhaps Dr. 
Bade thinks one place just as much holy ground as an- 


THE OLD TESTAMENT JEHOVAH 73 


other; yet we are disposed to think that he does a sood 
many things outside of the sanctuary that he would not do 
within it. Or does he not believe in churches that are dedi- 
cated to the worship of God? Judging him by his book, 
it is very difficult to form any idea of what he does believe, 
but we certainly think that a professor in a Christian sem- 
inary ought to believe in temples set apart for worship. 
Then, if it is now good for us spiritually to have sacred 
places and objects, was not Jehovah pursuing the normal 
method when He disciplined His ancient people in the 
Same manner? As the ark was a sacred vessel, its handling 
was regulated in a special way. Only the priests were to 
touch it, and even they must bear it from one place to 
another by a peculiar method. No unconsecrated hands 
were to touch it. Uzzah surely must have known this sacred 
law. At that particular time it was necessary for God to 
teach His people a stern and impressive lesson of rever- 
ence. When Uzzah, from whatever motive, stretched out a 
desecrating hand and touched the holy vessel, God by con- 
dign punishment taught the people then, and all people 
since that day, that He wants holy things to be treated in a 
reverent way. Not all irreverent people are stricken down 
so summarily. If they were, some critics of the Bible would 
have little chance to repent. But by this outstanding and 
impressive example God taught the world that all desecra- 
tion will sometime be punished if unrepented of. God has 
various ways of punishing, and uses various methods of 
education. Sometimes he punishes quickly; sometimes He 
delays. But let the sinner be sure his sin will find him 
out. ‘‘Because sentence against an evil work is not ex- 
ecuted speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is 
fully set in them to do evil’’ (Eecles, 8:11). ‘‘Though 
hand join in hand, the evil man shall not be unpunished’”’ 
(Prov. 11:21). When a certain worldling and infidel 
declared that he had plowed most of his field, planted his 


74 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


corn, tended it and husked it, all on Sunday, and then 
boasted to a religious editor that he had the best corn in 
the neighborhood, the editor replied, ‘‘The Almighty 
doesn’t settle all his accounts in October!”’ 

Did space permit, we would examine all the charges that 
our critic brings against the Jahveh of the Old Testament, 
but we can deal with only a few. All the rest will yield 
to a similar treatment, if one can only get the right view- 
point, which is that of the Bible itself. Says our author 
(p. 69): ‘‘A peculiarly primitive conception of J ah- 
veh’s personality comes to expression in the Jahvistic 
stratum of Ex. 32 and 33. The jealous wrath of Jahveh is 
aroused by the worship of the ‘golden ealf,’ and he resolves 
to destroy the faithless Israelites. ’”’ 

Note what a vicious twist this writer gives to every inci- 
dent. ‘‘The jealous wrath of Jahveh,”’ etc. Let it be re- 
membered that God had led the Israelites out of bondage 
that He might have a peculiar people, who should be the 
bearers of His plan and message of salvation to the world. 
While God was giving the law to Moses on the mountain, 
the people, helped by Aaron, made a golden calf, and fell 
into idolatry. This was the very sin from which He de- 
sired to save them, because they could be good and happy 
only by the worship and service of the one true God. 
Therefore God’s wrath was not petty jealousy of a golden 
calf, but righteous indignation against sin, which would be 
ruinous to His people. Does the critic want a God who is 
indifferent to idolatry? Suppose God would have said: 
‘<T am not a jealous God; it makes no difference to me how 
many idols, golden calves and all, you worship,’’ what 
would you think then of His moral character? If a man 
were to say, ‘‘I am not the least bit jealous of my wife; 
no difference to me how many other men she makes love 
to!’? you would have your opinion of his moral character, 
and would be likely to express it freely. The faithful 


ns 
EE — 


THE OLD TESTAMENT JEHOVAH 75 


pastor teaches his catechumens, who are still only children, 
that the word ‘‘jealous’’ is used sometimes in a good sense 
and sometimes in a bad sense. 

Then our critic proceeds: ‘‘Moses intervenes by re- 
minding him (Jahveh) of his oath, and by recalling him, 
as it were, to his own better self, so that he is led to ‘repent 
of the evil which he would do unto his people.’ By com- 
parison Moses appears more just and humane than God, 
who, like a quick-tempered monarch, is protected by his 
vizier from the consequences of his own ill-considered 
actions. ’’ 

You will take note of all those running innuendoes. Dr. 
Bade interprets this passage in the crass and ugly way. 
Let us look at it in the evangelical way—the way that the 
teaching of the Bible as a whole would lead Christian peo- 
ple to construe it. God, being the true God, and loving 
His people with a true divine love, was justly angry when 
they forsook Him and fell into idolatry. His justice would 
lead Him to destroy them. But Moses intercedes for them, 
and they are spared. Does not the Bible teach us to pray 
to God for the things we want and need? Did not Christ 
Himself teach men to pray; always to pray ‘and not to 
faint? Did He not offer intercessory prayer for His dis- 
ciples? While hanging on the cross, He cried, ‘‘Father, 
forgive them, for they know not what they do.’’ So it 
must be part of God’s plan that men shall pray, and not 
only for themselves, but for others. ‘‘I will be inquired 
of concerning this thing,’? He said. Now, when Moses 
interceded for Israel, it was not because Moses was more 
merciful than God, but because God had ordained that His 
just punishment should be averted by Moses’ prayer. If 
Moses’ prayer here was foolish, then all prayer is foolish. 
If Moses’ prayer was availing, then all true prayer will be 
availing. 

On page 70 Bade calls God a ‘‘partisan deity’’ and on 


16 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


page 72 a ‘‘clan-god!’’ These accusations are made be- 
cause Jahveh gave special aid and comfort to Abraham, 
Isaac, Jacob, Moses, etc. This is an amazing eriticism to 
make on the Bible, for the whole plan of redemption 
through Christ is based on the postulate that God had a 
‘<chosen people,’’ to whom He revealed Himself and whom 
He led in a peculiar way. One wonders how He could 
have had such a people if He did not in some ways bestow 
upon them His special guardian care. That was God’s way. 
For reasons of His own He seems to have elected it. He 
might have revealed Himself equally to all nations and to 
all men; but, speculate about it as you will, He did not 
choose to do so. That is also His way with science and 
invention. He might have led all men to discover the 
Copernican theory of the universe at the same time—but 
he didn’t. He might have brought about the universal 
discovery of the power of steam and electricity—but he 
didn’t. He has always led a few men to make the great 
discoveries and inventions, and then give them to the 
world. Critics may not like that way, but they will have 
to put up with it. That God had a chosen people, and 
that He bestowed upon them special favors (and at the 
same time laid upon them special responsibilities) is a 
patent fact; for everybody knows that we get the best 
religion in the world from the Hebrews. Whether God 
wrought this by direct or immanent revelation makes not 
a particle of difference so far as the ethics of it is con- 
eerned. As has been said so often, the Greeks had a genius 
for art, the Romans for law, and the Hebrews for religion. 
We have never yet heard a critic, however radical, call 
God a ‘‘partisan deity’’ or a ‘‘clan-god,’’ because He en- 
dued the Greeks with superior artistic spirit and skill, and 
the Romans with a predilection for law. No; it is only the 
God of the Bible, the most spiritual book in the world, who 
is faulted thus by the critics! 


THE OLD TESTAMENT JEHOVAH 717 


But it must be borne in mind always that God did not 
choose Israel for selfish purposes. They were to pass 
through a period of tutelage and discipline, till ‘‘the full- 
ness of time’’ should come; then they were to proclaim the 
gospel to all the world. Even away back there in Abra- 
ham’s day the universal promise was given: ‘‘In thy seed 
shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.’’ Why can- 
not the critics see God’s vast and beneficent plan? It is 
because they are dissectors, and cannot view an organism 
in its entirety. They lack spiritual vision. 

Obsessed with theidea that Jahveh was only a henothe- 
istic or tribal god, our critic, in allusion to Abraham’s 
adventures with Pharaoh and Abimelech, says (p. 72): 
“Thus the clan-god secures to Abraham the practical ad- 
vantages of his own deception. . . . The action of Jahveh 
exhibits this moral defect, for he helps Abraham, not be- 
cause he is right, but because he is his client.”’ 

This disposition to pervert everything in the Bible cer- 
tainly tries one’s patience; it all comes from a low point of 
view. Drs. Keil, Green, Orr, and many other evangelical 
scholars have dealt amply with all these objections of in- 
fidels and critics (for both of them raise the same difficul- 
ties); but Dr. Bade gives not the slightest proof in his 
book that he has ever read a first-class book of an apolo- 
getic character. In Abraham’s case, why, pray, did God 
choose him for His ‘‘client’’? Was it not because He saw 
that Abraham, with all his imperfections, was morally and 
spiritually the best fitted instrument for His purpose? He 
did not select Abraham without a profound spiritual rea- 
Son, nor merely as a matter of caprice; nor does the Bible 
ever “‘idealize’’ Abraham and the other patriarchs, but 
tells their story in the frankest possible way, never glozing 
over their moral obliquities. When they got into trouble 
by wrong-doing, God did not sanction their conduct, but 
led them patiently to higher ideals. 


18 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


The study of good evangelical commentaries like Keil’s 
and Lange’s and apologetic works like Orr’s, Green’s and 
Urquhart’s, which Dr. Bade would not think worth while, 
might have spared him from finding fault with Jehovah 
on account of Jacob’s duplicity. Let it be understood that 
Jehovah never commanded nor sanctioned J acob’s decep- 
tions, but, on the contrary, permitted them to bear their 
natural punishment in the trouble they brought upon him. 
Jacob had to flee for his life before Esau. But while Dr. 
Bade finds fault with God for slaying Uzzah, he seems to 
think that He should have knocked Jacob in the head for 
wrong-doing. However, the subsequent history of God’s 
redemptive plan through Israel and the Christ who came 
from Israel, proves that God chose wisely when He se- 
lected Jacob rather than Esau as the ancestor of the 
world’s Redeemer. But why did not God choose better 
men for His purposes? complains the caviler. We reply, 
God had to use such instruments as He could get, just as 
He has to use imperfect men to-day, if He is going to 
accomplish the world’s evangelization. Of course, God 
might have destroyed the free moral agency of those Bible 
characters, and made them mere lamb-like automata; but 
we know well enough that God never did that, and does 
not do that now. If men will read the Bible as a whole, 
instead of atomistically, they will see that His plans are 
large and organic. Of all the Bible characters, and of all 
God’s instruments to-day, Paul’s profound words are true: 
‘But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the 
exceeding greatness of the power may be of God and not 
from ourselves”? (2 Cor. 4:7). Oh, if Bade and his class 
could only see this divine method in the Bible, how much 
good they might do for the cause of religion ! 

Mr. Ingersoll used to vent his wrath against the Bible 
because, in the old version, it said that the Israelites ‘*bor- 
rowed’’ from the Egyptians, with no intention of bringing 


THE OLD TESTAMENT JEHOVAH 79 


back what they borrowed, and they did this by Jehovah’s 
direction! What was our amazement to find Dr. Bade, a 
professed Hebrew scholar, repeating this charge (pp. 73 
and 124)! If he had even read the American revised ver- 
sion of the Bible, he would have seen that the Hebrew word 
is translated ‘‘ask,’’ not ‘‘borrow.’’ We wish that the 
reader would turn to Keil’s ‘‘Commentary on the Books of 
Moses,’’ Vol. II, page 446, and read the whole explanation. 
Keil says: ‘‘But the only meaning of sha-al is, to ask or 
beg.”’ Again further on: ‘‘No proof can be brought that 
hish-eel means to lend, as is commonly supposed; the word 
occurs again in 1 Sam. 1:28, and there it means to grant or 
gwe.’’ The last statement is quoted by Keil from Knobel. 
See Haley in his ‘‘ Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible’’ 
(pp. 3800-302) for a lengthy explanation. He says that 
Hengstenberg, Rosenmueller, Lilienthal, Tholuck, Winer, 
Lange, Murphy, Keil, Wordsworth, and a host of critics, 
understand ‘‘that the Hebrews asked and received these 
things simply as gifts.’’ He quotes Josephus as corroborat- 
ing this view, for he says of the Egyptians: ‘“They also 
honored the Hebrews with gifts; some in order to secure 
their speedy departure, and others on account of neigh- 
borly intimacy with them.’’ See Robert Tuck in his 
scholarly ‘‘Handbook of Biblical Difficulties’? (pp. 79, 
80): ‘‘But the revisers have now sealed the very satis- 
factory explanation that has often been given, that the 
word translated ‘borrow’ really means ‘ask’ or ‘beg’; and 
so the Israelites, in fact, received these jewels as cifts, not 
as loans; the matter being perfectly honorable and straight- 
forward on both sides.’’ Read Dr. Tuck’s whole article, 
which is very illuminating. Says Murphy (‘Commentary 
on Exodus,’’ p. 33): ‘‘Shall ask, as a gift, if not for 
compensation for long unrequited services. The word can- 
not mean ‘borrow’ here, when the Egyptians were per- 
fectly aware that the Israelites would not return.’’? So we 


80 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


might quote authorities without number, all of whom have 
been ignored by Dr. Bade. 

But we cannot tarry over these details, much as we are 
tempted to do so. Just one more criticism (pp. 82, 83): 
‘(Many a pious soul has been troubled by such questions 
as, Why did God destroy, not only adults in the flood, but 
all the children and animals? They surely deserved a 
better fate!’? Then he slashes at the idea of ‘‘collective 
guilt, collective responsibilities,’’ and debates that ‘‘right- 
eousness, sin and punishment can concern only the indi- 
vidual.’’ He is also much concerned over ‘‘the smiling 
babes,’’ as Paine used to call them, that were slain by the 
Israelites in their conquest of Canaan. 

We reply: The same fault that Dr. Bade and his fellow- 
unbelievers find with the God of the Bible can be found 
with the ‘‘immanent’’ God whom they advocate. He cer- 
tainly permits the innocent to suffer with the guilty, and 
often for the guilty. When a flood, an earthquake, or a 
cyclone occurs, does it spare the good people and destroy 
only the wicked? Does it save the innocent babies, and 
kill off only the adults? Figure it as you will, the ‘‘imma- 
nent’’ God does and permits some very mysterious things. 
In the great world-war did Dr. Bade’s ‘‘immanent’’ God 
see to it that only the guilty were made to suffer? No; 
strange as it may seem, the principle of ‘‘collectivism”’ 
prevails largely in the régime of the world, and, whether 
we accept it by faith or grumble about it, we must put up 
with the constitution of the world as it is. After all, in 
this world of sin, we cannot expect even-handed justice 
always to be done. Perhaps even some of the Biblical 
critics will think that they have to suffer injustice at the 
hands of their critics; yet the ‘‘immanent’’ God permits 
them to suffer such unjust persecution! ‘‘Many a pious 
soul has been troubled by such questions.’’ 

Really, however, if God were to do what the Biblical 


THE OLD TESTAMENT JEHOVAH 81 


critics want Him to do, He would have to destroy the 
organism of the cosmos, in which all living things are 
united into a living whole Besides, their idealistic scheme 
would banish all suffering from the earth, for if all people 
saw that righteousness always ‘‘paid’’ in the coin of the 
realm and in the economy of nature, how good they would 
strive to be! Perhaps, after ali, when we look at things 
fundamentally and not superficially, we shall find that the 
present regimen is the best one for the discipline and 
development of real, true and sterling moral character. 
Besides, if God had spared all the children at the time of 
the flood, and drowned only the adults, we are in a quan- 
dary as to how Noah and his family would have taken care 
of all those babies! They certainly would have had their 
hands full! Perhaps most of them would have starved, 
and that would have been more cruel than quick and pain- 
less death by immersion. Moreover, we are glad to say 
that we have more faith in Jehovah than the critics have, 
seeing that He ‘‘so loved the world that He gave His only- 
begotten Son,’’ and so we do not believe that innocent 
children, no matter how they may pass out of the world, 
are lost. Christ said of little children: ‘‘Suffer them to 
come unto me; for of such is the kingdom of heaven.’’? And 
the God whom Christ represented was the God of the Old 
Testament. Who knows but all those antediluvian infants, 
had they and their wicked parents been spared, would 
have fallen into the same universal corruption? 

Here, in closing, we come upon a remarkable passage 
from Dr. Bade’s book (p. 85). After his terrific indict- 
ment against the moral character of Jahveh, he says: ‘‘It 
would be easy to brighten the picture which we have drawn 
by citing those instances in which the higher conceptions 
of God and duty came to expression.’’ Then, in the name 
of justice, why did he not ‘‘brighten the picture’’ if it 
would have been ‘‘easy’’ to do so? Would not fairness 


82 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


and honesty have compelled him to give the whole picture? 
Instead, he has represented Jahveh as little better than a 
moral monster, and that is the picture that will remain 
indelibly fixed on the minds of his readers and students. 
One would think that a seminary professor of Old Testa- 
ment literature would feel in conscience bound to limn the 
true and whole picture of Jahveh, and not merely admit 
grudgingly that the black sketch he has drawn might have 
been easily ‘‘brightened.’’ Let us have positive teaching 
and apologetics in our theological schools, and no more of 
this Biblical nihilism, 


CHAPTER V 
THE JEHOVAH OF ISRAEL 
Was He the Universal God or Only a National God? 


THE modern radical critics of the Old Testament con- 
tend that the religion of Israel was an evolution, not a 
direct revelation. It was simply the product of human 
thought, of human development. If God had anything to 
do with Israel’s religion, it was only in an indirect ‘‘imma- 
nent’’ way. According to this view, the religion of Israel 
started with fetichism and animism, gradually developed 
into polytheism, then into henotheism, and finally into 
monotheism. Therefore, at a certain point in this evolu- 
tionary process Israel regarded Jehovah as merely a na- 
tional God, and it was only in the time of the prophets 
that they began to look upon Him as the God of the uni- 
verse and of all nations. 

Dr. William Frederick Bade, in his book, ‘‘The Old 
Testament in the Light of To-day’’ (1915, second impres- 
sion, 1916), champions this view. On page 56 he says: 
‘¢ Jahveh is the God of Palestine only,’’ ‘‘the God of Israel 
alone, being concerned solely about the welfare of his 
Israelite worshipers and the retention of their exclusive 
homage. He is, therefore, a national deity—an ardent 
partisan on behalf of his clients when they are loyal, and 
destructively resentful when they pay homage to rival 
deities.’ On page 57 he declares that “‘the Hebrews, 
during the cruder stage of the national-god period of their 

83 


84 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


religion, believed Jahveh’s presence and power to be lim- 
ited to the territory inhabited by the Israelites.’’ Page 70: 
‘‘A national deity is a partisan deity, and Jahveh is no 
exception in this respect.’? On page 72 he calls Jahveh 
‘‘a elan-god.’’ Page 96: ‘‘The prohibition of the worship 
of other gods obviously does not constitute monotheism, 
but monolatry. The framers of this decalogue did not 
question the actual existence of other gods.’’ Again, on 
the same page: ‘‘Monotheism, even in Hebrew thought, 
came by stages, and not as a flash from the blue.’’ Com- 
pare also page 187. Even Deuteronomy did not reach a 
higher conception than ‘‘monojahvism’’ (pp. 187-217). 

These quotations are enough to indicate Dr, Bade’s posi- 
tion and that of the school of critics to which he belongs— 
Kuenen, Wellhausen, Stade, Cornill, Budde, Marti, W. R. 
Smith, H. P. Smith, ete., whom he cites as his authorities 
(see p. 88, foot-note). It is not our purpose to follow 
this author in detail, but rather to present a. positive 
argument in favor of the conservative view, namely, that 
the Jehovah of Israel was the God of the universe, and 
not a mere local or tribal deity. Our aim shall be to con- 
sider the Bible as it is, and carefully note its real teach- 
ing; then to show that this teaching is consistent, unitary, 
and rational; whereas the opposing theories of the destruc- 
tive critics do violence to the Holy Scriptures and nullify 
their value and religious authority. We shall confine our 
discussion to the theology of the Old Testament, the doc- 
trine of God. | 

Instead of ‘‘Jahveh,’’? we shall chiefly use the form 
** Jehovah,’’ which is the form used in the American re- 
vised version of the Bible. We shall also use the name 
**Elohim’’ in most of the cases where that name is used 
in the original Hebrew. Suppose we begin at once with 
the passage which has been the crux with the radical crities, 
and which has caused them no end of confusion—Exodus 


THE JEHOVAH OF ISRAEL 85 


6:2, 3: ‘‘And Elohim spake unto Moses, and said unto 
him, I am Jehovah: and I appeared unto Abraham, unto 
Isaac, and unto Jacob, as God Almighty (El Shaddai) ; 
but by my name Jehovah I was not known to them.’’ 

Here, it is said, is a direct contradiction of the many 
passages in Genesis in which Jehovah is represented as 
revealing Himself to the patriarchs. Therefore, it is con- 
tended, Genesis must be divided between at least two au- 
thors, the Elohist and the Jehovist, each of whom wrote a 
history from the creation to the close of Joseph’s life. But 
their accounts did not agree; they contained evident con- 
tradictions, not all of which were removed by the redactors 
who welded the two documents together. Of course, other 
contradictions in the Pentateuch are cited, but this is one 
of the most palpable ones. 

Suppose we scrutinize the moot question of discrepancies 
and contradictions in the early books of the Old Testament. 
One thing is certain—at some time in the world’s history 
these books were composed and written; some time these 
wonderful conceptions came in some way to a human mind; 
some time an author or redactor wrote the first verse of 
Genesis: ‘‘In the beginning God created the heavens and 
the earth.’’ This is one of the noblest and sublimest con- 
ceptions ever registered by human thought. No other 
ancient religion ever rose to the lofty idea of a personal 
God as the Creator of the universe. All other religious 
systems fail to attain to the idea of creation. In the ethnic 
cosmogonies the gods did not create the universe, but were 
evolved from it. Note the Babylonian conception of Tia- 
mat and Marduk—how crude, crass, and puerile in com- 
parison with the majestic statement of the first verse of 
the Bible! Now, suppose for the sake of argument that 
this conception first came to a writer—the “‘great un- 
known’? of the critics—in the days of Josiah or Nehemiah 
or Ezra or even later, is it likely that an editor capable of 


86 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


a theistic conception that far transcends the greatest con- 
ceptions of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle would have 
pieced together a history that was full of palpable contra- 
dictions, and then would expect his own people to receive 
it as a direct revelation from) God and the norm of their 
religious life? Suppose he was piecing together various 
documents and traditions, is it probable that he would have 
permitted Genesis to state that Jehovah appeared to the 
patriarchs again and again under that title, and then would 
have declared, in diametrical contradiction: ‘‘By my 
name Jehovah I was not known to them’’? Here was an 
author who could conceive the thought of Genesis 1:1, and 
yet was too dense or too careless to note a plain contradic- 
tion on the surface of the writing he was trying to impose 
on his people! The book which gives us so many of the 
great religious and theological conceptions we have to-day 
ought to be capable of a more rational interpretation. 
This may impress some men as an a@ priori presentation of 
the case, but we submit whether it is not reasonable. 

Let us see now how beautifully the opposite view re- 
solves the apparent difficulty respecting Jehovah. That 
- view is that Moses himself composed the Pentateuch. On 
the ground of its unity of plan, doctrine, and historical 
unfolding this is a reasonable hypothesis. Some years ago 
Dr. Alfred Cave, in his cogent book, ‘‘The Inspiration of 
the Old Testament,’’ contended that Moses was himself the 
Jehovist writer of Genesis. Moses may have had before 
him the Elohist document or tradition, which had been 
handed down to him from the fathers. Now, when God 
appeared to him at the burning bush and subsequently, 
He may have revealed Himself for the first time by the 
name Jehovah, whereas prior to that time He had made 
Himself known to the fathers as Elohim, El, and El Shad- 
dai. Note, now, what God said to Moses in Exodus 3:6, 
at the burning bush: ‘‘I am the Elohe of thy father, the 


THE JEHOVAH OF ISRAEL 87 


Elohe of Abraham, the Elohe of Isaac, and the Elohe of 
Jacob.’’ Then in verse 15: ‘‘And Elohim said moreover 
unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, 
Jehovah, the Elohe of your fathers, the Elohe of Abraham, 
the Elohe of Isaac, and the Elohe of Jacob, hath sent me 
unto you.’’ This is repeated almost verbatim in the next 
verse. In verse 18 Moses and the elders are instructed to 
speak in this way to the King of Egypt: ‘‘Jehovah, the 
Elohe of the Hebrews, hath met with us; and now let us 
go, we pray thee, three days’ journey into the wilderness, 
that we may sacrifice to Jehovah, our Elohe.’’ In chapters 
4 and 5 the same statement is made a number of times. 
In 6:5 Jehovah says: ‘‘I have remembered my covenant,”’ 
and in verse 8: ‘‘And I will bring you in unto the land 
which I sware to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob; 
and I will give it you for a heritage: I am Jehovah.’’ 

How significant are all these passages and others that 
might be cited with just as much relevancy!. Here God 
assures Moses again and again that He, Jehovah, is the 
very Elohim who appeared to the fathers and covenanted 
with them. Jehovah and Elohim are identical—the same 
Divine Being, known by different names to designate His 
varied characteristics. Line upon line God impresses this 
fact on the consciousness of Moses and the people of 
Israel. How beautifully this view preserves the unity and 
consistency of the Old Testament theology, and also its 
historical continuity! Why break the Pentateuch up into 
inconsequential fragments, when its solidarity and organic 
oneness can be seen by the simplest interpretation ? 

We are coming now to the crucial point. Suppose that 
God revealed Himself to Moses as the Elohim of the 
fathers, but under a new and tenderer name, Jehovah. 
Suppose again that, with this knowledge, Moses wrote the 
book of Genesis, using as his guide such documents or 
traditions, or both, as may have come down to him from 


88 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


preceding generations.* Under these circumstances would 
he not have inserted the name Jehovah in the Genetical 
narrative in many places? God may not have revealed His 
name Jehovah to the patriarchs, but Moses, who knew that 
Jehovah and Elohim were identical, would, in reciting the 
history, use both cognomens interchangeably. 

On this presumption how rational is the use of the divine 
appellations in the first and second chapters of Genesis! 
When Moses recited the general history of creation, he 
naturally used the name Elohim, by which God had been 
known as the Creator from the earliest time. However, 
when he came to record the more detailed account of crea- 
tion (Gen. 2), and especially the creation of man, the chief 
creature of God’s love and care, Moses introduced the name 
Jehovah. But if he had employed that name only, his 
readers might have thought that a different God was now 
making man and dealing with him; besides, God had said 
to Moses: I, Jehovah, am the Elohe of thy fathers, Abra- 
ham, Isaac and Jacob. So what was more natural and 
consistent than for Moses, in Genesis 2, to link together the 
two divine names, and say: ‘‘And Jehovah Elohim formed 
man of the dust of the ground,’’ ‘‘And Jehovah Elohim 
planted a garden eastward, in Eden,’’ ‘‘And Jehovah Elo- 
him said, It is not good that the man should be alone’’? 
Thus, just as Jehovah and Elohim were identified in 
Moses’ vision at the burning bush, so they were identified 
by Moses in the wonderful creation history in the first two 
chapters of Genesis. 

As Dr. Cave has shown in his brilliant and logical way, 


Moses used the divine names with scientific precision: 


throughout the entire history in Genesis, never putting the 


* Our own view is that, while Moses may have had before him such 
‘‘documents,’’ or ‘‘traditions,’’ or both, he was inspired by the Holy 
Spirit in a special way in his editorial use of them, as well as in the 
additions he made to them. This view agrees with and conserves the 
teaching of 2 Timothy 3:16, 2 Peter 1:19-21, and of the New Testa- 
ment generally. 


THE JEHOVAH OF ISRAEL 89 


name Jehovah more than once or twice into the mouths of 
the ante-diluvian and post-diluvian patriarchs. In the 
narrative portions, which were the writing of Moses, both 
names are used as suited the narrator’s purpose, but in 
the conversational parts the name Elohim, with very few 
exceptions, alone is used. This is just as it should be if 
Moses was the writer and compiler of Genesis. Then after 
Exodus 3-6 the two names are employed largely without 
distinction. This hypothesis preserves the unity and integ- 
rity of the Pentateuch, whereas the divisive critical the- 
ories convert the Bible into historical, literary, moral, and 
religious chaos.* 

Turning from mere minutie and superficies, and look- 
ing at the Biblical system as a whole, one may see what a 
wonderfully rational and unified Weltanschauung (world- 
view) it presents. First, Elohim created the heavens and 
the earth; therefore He is the universal God, not a mere 
tribal deity. Then Jehovah Elohim (the same God, the 
God revealed to Moses in Exodus 3-6) created man and 
woman, and watched over them and all their posterity, as 
is shown by the history of the ante-diluvians, the flood, the 
tower of Babel, and the dispersion of the tribes after the 
confusion of tongues. Then, without withdrawing His 


* Since the foregoing was printed in The Biblical Review, New 
York, we have read with much interest and profit Dr. A. Troelstra’s 
excellent monograph, ‘‘The Name of God in the Pentateuch’’ (1912, 
translated by Edmund McClure). We recommend it most heartily. 
It is published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 
London, most of whose publications are here commended as safe and 
valuable. Dr. Troelstra presents a different method of explaining 
Exodus 6:2, 3. It is ingenious and plausible, and, if true, preserves 
the integrity and organic unity of the Pentateuch, just as our own 
view does; but we cannot help thinking that his treatment is round- 
about and over-complicated; whereas the view we have presented is 
simple and clear, and meets all the exigencies of the case. Here it 
is, put in its most condensed form: 

Moses was the inspired compiler of Genesis; to Moses God re- 
vealed Himself for the first time under the name Jehovah; hence 
Moses in writing Genesis would use the various names of God almost 
interchangeably, proving that the same Supreme Being was meant 
throughout. 


90 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


general presence and providence from the other nations of 
the earth, He selected Abraham to be the father of His 
chosen people. With him and his descendants He cov- 
enanted and dealt in a special way, made special revela- 
tions to them as need required, delivered to them the 
Sacred Oracles as a sacred trust, carried them for centuries 
through a special course of moral and spiritual discipline ; 
then at last, in ‘‘the fullness of time,’’ He gave, through 
them according to the flesh, His only-l cen Son to be 
the Redeemer of the world. Isit not thre _ 1out a coherent 
plan? The Hebrews were not elected as the chosen people 
merely for their own sakes. God did not become their 
‘‘nartisan’’ and they His ‘‘clients.’’ That is a slur on the 
teaching of the Bible. God chose the people of Israel in 
order that, at the proper epoch, they might fulfill the 
divine commission to go ‘‘into all the world and preach 
the Gospel to every creature.’’ Thus, after all the cen- 
turies of patience and discipline, the promise to Abraham 
was made good: ‘‘In thy seed shall all the nations of the 
earth be blessed’’ (Gen. 22:18; cf. 26:4; 28:14; Acts 
3:25). The unity of Biblical doctrine is also seen in 
the New Testament passage: ‘‘For as in Adam all die, 
so also in Christ shall all be made alive’’ (1 Cor. 15:22; 
cf. Gen. 3:1-21). So also the Paradise that was lost in the 
first book of the Bible is regained in the last (cf. Gen. 3: 
22-24: Rev. 2:7; 21:1-5). 

Our point is this; If the Biblical teaching is taken 
just as it is, and in its historical order, it will be found 
to be characterized by a divine unity, a wonderful organic 
consistency and completeness. On the other hand, if the 
partition view is held, the Bible becomes a moral and re- 
ligious medley, a chaos of indeterminateness, The former 
view affords an adequate explanation of the salutary in- 
fluence of the Bible upon the world; the latter does not. 


THE JEHOVAH OF ISRAEL 91 


Which view, then, is the more scientific, the adequate or 
the inadequate one? 

By a general survey we have now shown that Jehovah 
was the Creator and Preserver of the universe and the God 
of all nations. Our next object shall be to ascertain 
whether He sustained this universal character after the 
call of Abraham. Note first Genesis 11:9: ‘‘Therefore 
was the name of it called Babel; because Jehovah did there 
confound the+ wage of all the earth: and from thence 
did Jehovah sy. er them abroad upon the face of all the 
earth.’’ Does that sound as if God were only a ‘‘clan”’ 
deity? How could universalism and monotheism be made 
more pronounced? Then follows the recital of the ‘‘gener- 
ations of Shem”’ to Terah and Abram, their removal from 
Ur of the Chaldees to Haran, the death of Terah, and the 
call of Abram. The last event is given in the opening 
verses of Genesis 12. Note how the record begins: ‘‘And 
Jehovah said‘unto Abram.’’ It is Jehovah, the same Je- 
hovah who ruled all the world and its peoples up to that 
time—not a tribal god. Abram’s call is recorded in Gene- 
sis 12:1-3, and ends in this way: ‘‘And I will bless them 
that bless thee, and him that curseth thee will I curse; and 
in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.’? Here 
Jehovah is most certainly exhibited as the God of all 
nations. In choosing Abram He did not abdicate His care 
and rulership of the rest of the world. When God con- 
verts an individual, and calls him His son, that does not 
mean that He forsakes and forgets all the rest of the human 
family—surely, surely not! 

Immediately Abram and his retinue journeyed to the 
land of Canaan, where Jehovah—the same Jehovah, re- 
member—appeared to him again,eand said: ‘‘Unto thy 
seed will I give this land’’ (Gen. 12:7). How could a 
mere clan deity presume to make such a promise to Abram 
when that very country was then denizened by another 


92 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


nation, the Canaanites (v. 6)? When famine arose in 
Canaan, Jehovah went with Abram down into Egypt, and 
saved him and his wife Sarai from the hand of Pharaoh. 
There is not the least hint in the Biblical account that Je- 
hovah came into conflict with any ‘‘rival’’ gods in Egypt, 
whom He overcame with difficulty. On coming back from 
the slaughter of the kings (Gen, 14), Abram met Melchize- 
dek, King of Salem, who ‘‘was priest of God Most High’’ 
(Hebrew, El Elyon). Then: ‘‘And he [Melchizedek] 
blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of God Most High, 
possessor [margin, maker] of heaven and earth: and blessed 
be God Most High, who hath delivered thine enemies into 
thy ,hands.’’ This ancient worthy, Melchizedek, was able 
to hold in mind the idea that God could be the God of 
Abram and at the same time the supreme God. He could 
see that there was no inconsistency between the two ideas. 

In Genesis 16 the angel of Jehovah appears to Hagar, 
and says to her: ‘‘I will greatly multiply thy seed, that 
it shall not be numbered for multitude’’ (v. 10). ‘‘And 
she called the name of Jehovah that spake unto her, Thou 
art a God that seeth’’ (v. 13, Hebrew, Hl Roi). Here the 
Bible teaches that Jehovah, instead of confining His provi- 
dence to Abram and his seed, would also exercise oversight 
over the Ishmaelites. No doctrine of henotheism taught 
here. Advance into chapter 17: ‘‘And when Abram was 
ninety and nine years old, Jehovah appeared to Abram, 
and said unto him, I am God Almightly’’ (Hl Shaddat). 
Here it is significant that the Biblical history identifies 
Jehovah with El Shaddai, showing that all these names are 
simply the appellations of the one Supreme Being. This 
was verse 1; then verse 3, continuing the incident: ‘‘And 
Abram fell on his face: and Elohim talked with him.’’ How 
interesting to note that in this brief passage Jehovah, El 
Shaddai, and Elohim are identified as the same God. Then 
(v. 5) God changed the patriarch’s name to Abraham, ‘‘for 


THE JEHOVAH OF ISRAEL 93 


the father of a multitude of nations have I made thee.’’ Not 
merely of one nation, but ‘‘a multitude of nations.’’ What 
becomes of the assumption that Jehovah was merely a pro- 
vincial deity? The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah 
proves that God had not abandoned the rest of the world 
to bestow all His attention on Abraham. He took ecogniz- 
ance of their wickedness, saying: ‘‘Their sin is very griev- 
ous’’ (Gen, 18:20). If Jehovah was only a tribal god, how 
could He bring utter destruction on the cities of the plain 
which were under the jurisdiction of another deity? Where 
were Jehovah’s ‘‘rival deities’’? The theory of a tribal god 
will not hold together. In 18:25 Abraham prayed thus to. 
Jehovah: ‘‘Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?”’ 
So it would appear that Abraham did not cherish crass 
and narrow ideas of Jehovah. Chapter 20 recites Abra- 
ham’s adventures in Gerar with King Abimelech. Note this 
(v.17): ‘‘And Abraham prayed unto Elohim: and Elohim 
healed Abimelech, and his wife, and his maid-servants; and 
they bare children.’’ Was God only a tribal god here? 
After Isaac’s birth and Abraham’s compact with King 
Abimelech, the record says (21:33): ‘‘And Abraham 
planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba, and called there on 
the name of Jehovah, the Everlasting God’’ (El Olam). 
With the idea of the Everlasting God in this passage cor- 
respond all the marginal references, namely, Exodus 15: 
18; Deuteronomy 32:40; Psalm 90:2; Isaiah 40:28; Jere- 
miah 10:10, showing that the identical conception of God 
prevailed throughout Israel’s whole history. In Genesis 
22:18 Jehovah renewed His covenant with Abraham, say- 
ing: ‘‘In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be 
blessed ; because thou hast obeyed my voice.’’ In 24:3 Abra- 
ham calls Jehovah ‘‘the Elohim of heaven and the Elohim 
of the earth,’’ and in verse 7 ‘‘the Elohim of heaven.’’ 
The romantic story of Isaac and Rebekah is told in chapter 
24, and here again the case is diametrically against the rad- 


94 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


ical view, for Abraham’s kindred, away in Haran or Meso- 
potamia, replied thus to the entreaty of Abraham’s servant: 
‘The thing proceedeth from Jehovah; we cannot speak 
unto thee bad or good. Behold, Rebekah is before thee, 
take her, and go, and let her be thy master’s son’s wife, 
as Jehovah hath spoken.’’ 

The same God renewed His covenant with Isaac and 
Jacob. To the latter Jehovah appeared in a vision, and said 
(Gen. 28:13,14): ‘‘I am Jehovah, the Hlohe of Abra- 
ham thy father, and the Elohe of Isaac: the land whereon 
thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed; and thy 
seed shall be as the dust of the earth . . . and in thee and 
thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.”’ 
God keeps up His cosmical interest throughout the whole 
thrilling narrative. Through all Joseph’s career in Egypt 
‘¢ Jehovah was with him’’ and ‘‘the spirit of Elohim’’ was 
in him. God also proved that He had control of natural 
and national affairs in Egypt, bringing plentiful harvests 
for seven years and then a distressing drought for the same 
length of time, and making Joseph the second in rule over 
all the land, If Jehovah was only a tribal deity, it is re- 
markable that He did not encounter any successful oppo- 
sition from the national gods of Egypt. There is not a 
syllable in the entire history giving a hint of even the 
existence of other gods. Even the Pharaoh acknowledged 
the sovereignty of Elohim (41:37-40). Many more similar 
passages might be cited from Genesis, but these are ample 
to prove that God is everywhere represented as the one and 
only God. It is only by inverting and subverting the his- 
tory that this concurrent testimony can be overcome. The 
difference, therefore, between the two views is simply this: 
The former accepts the Biblical history ; the latter does not. 
Hence the issue is clearly defined. 

Does the teaching of the rest of the Pentateuch agree 
with the pure monotheism of Genesis? We shall see that 


THE JEHOVAH OF ISRAEL 95 


it does. Our examination of Exodus 3 and 4 has shown that 
Jehovah revealed Himself to Moses as the God (Elohim) of 
the fathers. In the whole contest of Moses with Pharaoh, 
Jehovah certainly proved Himself not only the God of the 
Hebrews, as He frequently called Himself, but also the 
sovereign over Egypt and her people as well. It was Je- 
hovah who brought all the plagues upon Pharaoh and the 
Kgyptians (Ex. 7:20, 21; 8:6, 16-18, ete.), who hardened 
Pharaoh’s heart (ch. 10), who discomfited the hosts of 
Egypt in the Red Sea (14:27; 15:19). Even the magicians 
of Pharaoh were compelled to admit: ‘‘This is the finger 
of Elohim’’ (8:19). 

Naturally there are many passages in the Pentateuch 
in which Jehovah is called ‘‘the God of Israel.’’ But there 
are also many direct teachings which show that the reveal- 
ing God of Israel was none other than the God of the 
universe and of all nations. The question to be settled is 
not: What did Israel think of God? but: In what char- 
acter did God reveal Himself to Israel, according to the 
clear teaching of the Bible? To mix up the two, and espe- 
cially to make God responsible for the defective thinking 
and conduct of Israel, as is so often done, is to violate every 
principle of Biblical hermeneutics. Such a method would 
make chaos of any historical book. 

‘““Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and 
keep my covenant, then ye shall be mine own possession 
from among all peoples, for all the earth is mine’’ (Ex. 
19:5). The very basis of His choice of Israel is that all the 
earth is His, and therefore He has the right and the power 
to choose whom He will. How beautifully this teaching 
coordinates with that of Psalm 24:1: ‘‘The earth is Je- 
hovah’s, and the fullness thereof; the world, and they that 
dwell therein.’? Exodus 20:8-11: ‘‘Remember the sab- 
bath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do 
all thy work; but the seventh day is a sabbath unto Jehovah 


96 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


thy God ... for in six days Jehovah made heaven and 
earth, ie sea, and all that in them is, and rested the sev- 
enth Hee wherefor Jehovah blessed the sabbath day, and 
hallowed it.’’? Interpreted naturally, this commandment of 
the decalogue involves the following significant points: 
That Moses and Israel were conversant with the creation 
story of Genesis 1; that Jehovah and Hlohim were one and 
the same, for fanenis 1 attributes the creation to Elohim 
and this passage attributes it to Jehovah; that Jehovah 
is the universal God, not merely a tribal deity. Exodus 
34:10, 11, Jehovah aad to Moses on the mountain: ‘‘Be- 
hold, I ale a covenant: before all thy people I will do 
marvels, such as have not been wrought in all the earth, 
nor in any nation; and all the people among which thou art 
shall see the work of Jehovah ... behold, I drive out 
before thee the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Hittite, 
and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite.’’ This 
passage, like a number of ReneS containing the same 
promise, proves that Jehovah’s domain and power extended 
far beyond Israel. It would hardly have been safe for a 
mere ‘‘clan-god’’ to make such sweeping promises. He 
might not have been able to overcome His ‘‘rival deities. ’’ 

Numbers 16:22 (the prayer of Moses and Aaron in rela- 
tion to Korah’s rebellion): ‘‘O God [£1], the God 
[Elohe] of the spirits of all flesh.’ Ever and anon the 
idea of Elohim as the universal God comes to the fore; it 
is always a latent thought; it breathes through the whole 
history. Chapters 22-24 of Numbers tell the story of Balak 
and his prophet Balaam, who were Moabites. All through 
this story Balaam, though a Moabite, recognizes Jehovah 
and Elohim as God, and can prophesy only what He reveals 
to him. Take one example among many. Balaam said 
(Num. 22:8,12): ‘‘I will bring you word again, as Je- 
hovah shall speak unto me.’’ ‘‘And Elohim said unto 
Balaam, Thou shalt not go with them.’’ Plainly J ehovah’s 


THE JEHOVAH OF ISRAEL 97 


rule extended beyond Israel. Why did not the gods of 
Moab inspire Balaam to curse Israel to please his king? 

- Deuteronomy 4:32 (the words of Moses to Israel: ‘‘For 
ask now of the days that are past, which were before thee, 
since the day that God [Zlohim] created man upon the 
earth, and from the one end of the heaven unto the other,”’ 
ete. Verse 35: ‘‘Unto thee it was showed, that thou might- 
est know that Jehovah he is Elohim; there ig none else be- 
sides him.’’ Verse 39: ‘‘Know therefore this day, and lay 
it to thy heart, that Jehovah he is God in heaven above 
and upon the earth beneath; there is none else.’? Much 
more than a ‘‘clan deity’’ here. Deuteronomy 5:26: ‘‘For 
who is there of all flesh, that hath heard the voice of the 
living God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as we have 
heard, and lived?’’ The phrases, ‘‘all flesh’’ and ‘‘living 
God,’’ connote the universal theistic conception. :Deuter- 
onomy 6:4: ‘‘Hear, O Israel: Jehovah our God is one 
Jehovah: and thou shalt love Jehovah thy God with all 
thy heart,’’ etc. This famous passage, with other passages, 
teaches much more than monolatry; it teaches the divine 
unity and universality—that God is unus et unicus. Deu- 
teronomy 7:6: ‘‘ Jehovah thy God hath chosen thee to be a 
people for his own possession, above all peoples that are 
upon the face of the earth.’’ Is it not clear that the Bible 
teaches that God is both the God of His people Israel and 
the Ruler over all the earth? Read the whole of chapter 7 
in proof of this conception, Chapter 8:20: ‘‘As the 
nations which Jehovah maketh to perish before you, so 
shall ye perish; because ye would not hearken unto the 
voice of Jehovah your God.’’ Chapter 32:39 (all of 
Moses’ song in this chapter should be read) : ‘‘See now that 
I, even I, am He, and there is no god with me: I kill, and 
I make alive; I wound, and I heal; and there is none that 
can deliver out of my hand.’’ This teaches pure mono- 
theism—‘*‘there is no god with me’’—and divine omnipo- 


N\ 


\ 


98 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


tence. Chapter 33:26,27 (from Moses’ parting benedic- 
tion): ‘‘There is none like unto God, O Jeshurun, who 
rideth upon the heavens for thy help, and his excellency 
is on the skies, The eternal God is thy dwelling-place, and 
underneath are the everlasting arms.’’ No doctrine of a 
circumscribed deity is taught here. Compare 2 Samuel 
7 :22-24; Isaiah 46:9; and Jeremiah 10:6-10 to see how 
easily the inspired writers could carry the double concep- 
tion that God is at the same time the only God and also the 
God of His peculiar people. They had no difficulty, as the 
radical critics seem to have, in mastering that simple 
thought. 

A few citations from Joshua. In 2:11 Rahab the harlot 
said to the spies in Jericho: ‘‘For Jehovah your God, He 
is God in heaven above, and on earth beneath.’’ Where 
did Rahab get her lofty conception of Jehovah? It must 
have been communicated to her from an Israelitish source 
and from the reports of Jehovah’s wonderful works. Won- 
derful that this pagan woman could master a higher the- 
istic idea than that of a mere provincial god! Chapter 
4:23,24: ‘‘For Jehovah your God dried up the waters of 
the Jordan . . . as Jehovah your God did to the Red Sea 
. . . that all the peoples of the earth may know the hand 
of Jehovah, that it is mighty; that ye may fear Jehovah 
your God forever.’’ Joshua did not have a provincial 
view. Whatever men may think of Joshua’s command to 
the sun and the moon to stand still (10: 12-14), whether it 
was an actual occurrence or only a poetical representation, 
it shows that Joshua and Israel regarded Jehovah as the 
omnipotent one, and not merely as a limited tribal deity. 
The 24th chapter goes back in Israel’s history to Terah, the 
father of Abraham, when ‘‘your fathers dwelt of old time 
beyond the River ... and they served other gods,’’ and 
traces God’s dealings with them amid all the idolatrous 
nations, proving Himself the only true and victorious God. 


THE JEHOVAH OF ISRAEL 99 


Most consistently does the Bible sustain the historical con- 
tinuity. 

We might continue our study through all the remaining 
books of the Old Testament, and prove its consistent and 
persistent monotheistic teaching. Wherever this concep- 
tion is not expressly set forth, it is clearly implied. We need 
not pursue the question further along this line. We shall 
now treat of two matters that seem to trouble those holding 
the tribal-god theory. 

The first is that the Old Testament so often calls Jehovah 
the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Israel. Such lan- 
gauge strikes the critics as the language of henotheism, 
making God only a tribal god. But why not also ponder the 
many passages which represent Jehovah as the God of the 
heavens and the earth and of all nations? Does not the 
Bible, right on its surface, mean to inculcate the concep- 
tion that the God of Israel is also the true, living, and 
universal God? For His own wise purposes He selected a 
‘‘yeculiar people’’ to train and discipline, to receive and 
bear His oracles, and finally to bring forth the world’s 
Redeemer. If one believes in the Christian religion at all, 
if he believes that Christ is the Savior of the world, he must 
admit that, whether God wrought directly or only imma- 
nently with Israel, He pursued the plan of using a chosen 
people. The ‘‘immanent’’ God did not give the world’s 
Messiah through the people of India or China or Japan. 
So per se the ‘‘immanent’’ God acted just as partially as 
the true God of the Old Testament did. 

But the difficulty comes solely from a stiff, contracted 
interpretation which does not give a large Biblical con- 
ception of God, and does not make clear distinctions. There 
is a broad sense in which God is the God of the universe 
and of all nations; there is also a peculiar sense in which 
He is the God of His people. God does not stand in the 
same relation to the true Christian and the wicked unbe- 


100 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


liever. His general care is over all; His special care and 
grace are bestowed on those who accept Christ and do His 
will. He is essentially present and active everywhere, but 
He functions differently under different circumstances. 
There is no contradiction between the two conceptions. 
And this is the plain, simple teaching of the Bible from 
beginning to end. It ought never to have been mistaken 
by any student of the Divine Word. 

Another point raised is that the Old Testament fre- 
quently speaks of idols as if they were real gods; for in- 
stance: ‘‘Thou shalt have no other gods before me’’ (Ex. 
20:3) ; “‘and worship other gods, and serve them’’ (Deut. 
30:17) ; ‘‘and they served other gods’’ (Josh. 24:2). Do 
not these expressions prove that Israel and even their sup- 
posed Jehovah regarded the idols of the heathen as real 
beings, real gods? ‘‘The prohibition of the worship of 
other gods obviously does not constitute monotheism, but 
monolatry’’ (Bade, p. 96). Even an untrained reader 
should see that the word ‘‘gods’’ is employed in such places 
according to a common usage of speech. The heathen 
people regarded their idols as gods. So the Biblical writers 
simply made use of their own term. We do the same to- 
day. We speak of the ‘‘gods’’ of the heathen. Do we 
mean. to convey the impression that their gods are real 
gods—that they have a real existence? We simply mean 
that they are the gods of their imaginative superstition, 
The same intelligence should be accredited to the Jehovah 
of the Bible and to His inspired prophets. The stumbling- 
stone of Dr. Bade should have been removed by reading on 
in Exodus 20 to the 23d verse, for there Jehovah said: 
‘Gods of silver, or gods of gold, ye shall not make unto 
you.’’ In 32:31 Moses said to God: ‘‘Oh, this people have 
sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of gold.’’ 
This agrees with Isaiah 44:10: ‘‘Who hath fashioned a 
god, or molten an image that is profitable for nothing?’’ 


THE JEHOVAH OF ISRAEL 101 


Also verse 15: ‘‘Yea, he maketh a god, and worshipeth 
it; he maketh it a graven image, and falleth down thereto.’’ 
Chapter 42:17: ‘‘They shall be turned back, they shall be 
utterly put to shame, that trust in graven images, that say 
unto molten images, Ye are our gods.’’ Thus the Bible 
uses the word ‘‘gods’’ in the sense of idols. 

But there is express teaching in the Bible that the gods 
of the heathen are ‘‘nothings’’ (elilim). Leviticus 19:4: 
‘‘Turn ye not unto idols [| Hebrew, elilim, things of naught], 
nor make to yourselves molten gods: I am Jehovah your 
God.’’ Also 26:1, With this agrees the later teaching of 
the Bible, which is still more pronounced and explicit, 
showing that the Old Testament religion is not a mere 
natural evolution; it is a progressive revelation from Je- 
hovah. In Psalm 96:4,5: ‘‘For great is Jehovah, and 
greatly to be praised: He is to be feared above all gods. 
For all the gods of the peoples are idols [elelim]; but Je- 
hovah made the heavens.’’ Here even the Psalmist, who 
calls them nothings, calls the idols ‘‘gods.’’ 1 Chronicles 
16:26: ‘‘For all the gods of the peoples are idols [elilum] ; 
but Jehovah made the heavens.’’ Note Hezekiah’s prayer 
(2 Kings 19:17,18): ‘‘Of a truth, Jehovah, the kings of 
Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands, and 
have cast their gods into the fire; for they were no gods, 
but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone; therefore 
they have destroyed them.’’ Perhaps it will be said that 
this is a contradiction, due to ‘‘variant’’? documents; for 
Hezekiah called them ‘‘gods’’ in one sentence, and in the 
next declared that ‘‘they were no gods.’’ Perhaps the 
redactor is to blame here for not noticing the contradic- 
tion in his JEDP documents. Poor Jeremiah also com- 
mitted a crude contradiction when he wrote (2:11): ‘‘ Hath 
a nation changed its gods, which yet are no gods?’’ How 
could they be ‘‘gods’’ and ‘‘no gods’’ at the same time? 
We believe that the whole Old Testament conception of 


102 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


heathen deities is summed up in the words of Psalm 
115:4-8: ‘‘Their idols are silver and gold, the work of 
men’s hands. They have mouths, but they speak not; 
eyes have they, but they see not. ... They that make 
them are like unto them; yea, every one that trusteth in 
them.’’ 

No doubt many of the people of Israel had crude ideas 
of Jehovah and of the heathen gods. It would be no wonder 
if they had, surrounded by idolatrous nations as they were, 
and held in bondage for four hundred years. Their many 
relapses into idolatry furnish proof of their idolatrous 
tendencies. But their crass conceptions should not be 
accredited to Jehovah, or to His inspired writers and 
prophets who constantly rebuked the idol worship of the 
people. It is this very tendency in human nature to fall 
into idolatry that makes a divine and authoritative revela- 
tion, such as we have in the Bible, a positive necessity. 
Otherwise we would all perhaps still be bowing down to 
idols to-day. 

Anent this point, Dr. James Orr (‘‘Problem of the Old 
Testament,’’ p. 123) has a good sentence: ‘‘That the 
religion of Abraham, and Moses, and other great leaders of 
the nation was at heart the worship of the one true God, 
recognized by them to be the Creator, Ruler, and Lord in 
providence of the whole world, we see not the smallest 
reason to doubt.’’ We also venture to quote the closing 
paragraph of an acute section of Dr. Orr’s book (p. 133). 

‘“We conclude that no good ground has been shown for 
the view that ‘ethical monotheism’ was first introduced by 
the prophets, beginning with Amos. We have found mono- 
theism already imbedded in the narratives in Genesis, 
which, in their J and E parts, are, on the critic’s own show- 
ing, ‘pre-prophetic.’ So far from monotheism being the 
creation of the prophets—with perhaps Elijah as a pre- 
cursor—these prophets, without exception, found upon 


THE JEHOVAH OF ISRABL . 103 


and presuppose an older knowledge of the true God. They 
bring no new doctrine, still less dream of the evolution 
from a Moloch or a Kenite storm-god—as much the product 
of men’s fancies as Chemosh or Dagon—of the living, holy, 
all-powerful, all-gracious Being to whose service the people 
were bound by every tie of gratitude, but from whom they 
had basely apostatized. They could not have understood 
such evolution from an unreality into a reality. They 
were in continuity with the past, not imnovators upon it. 
Dillmann speaks for a large class of scholars when he says, 
in decisively rejecting this theory: ‘No prophet is con- 
scious of proclaiming for the first time this higher divine 
principle: each reproaches the people for an apostasy from 
a much better past and better knowledge: God has a con- 
troversy with His people.’ ’”’ 

And we may add, it is because some students do not see 
this ‘‘controversy,’’ cannot distinguish between God’s 
progressive revelation and the sinful subjective tendencies 
and crude views of the stiff-necked people of Israel—it is 
for this reason that they make such a sorry jumble of the 
history and doctrines of the Bible. Thus they fail to see 
its divine unity. On account of their extreme subjectivism, 
they have lost the key to its interpretation. That key is 
this: Jehovah Elohim reveals Himself in the Bible as the 
one true and living God, the Creator, Preserver, and Re- 
deemer of the whole cosmos. 


CHAPTER VI 
A RECENT ‘‘ HISTORY OF THE HEBREWS’’ 


SEVERAL times we had seen and heard recommendations 
of Dr. Frank Knight Sanders’ ‘‘ History of the Hebrews,’’ 
and had come to the conclusion that it must be a useful 
and evangelical book, but had not found time to give it 
a personal examination. However, when we saw it meet- 
ing with the approval of the liberalistic writers (particu- 
larly of Dr. Bade in his ‘‘The Old Testament in the Light 
of To-day,’’ p. x of the preface), we decided that it 
would be well to give the book a personal examination. A 
good deal of suspicion was stirred in our mind on noting 
that Dr. Bade claimed Dr. Sanders as one of his ‘‘ former 
teachers at Yale.’’ If Dr. Sanders’ teaching resulted in 
the production of such a book as Bade’s, or did not pre- 
vent such a production, then Dr. Sanders’ teaching, by 
that very token, could not have had very much evangelical 
virility and effectiveness; for Bade’s work is by all odds 
one of the most rationalistic and destructive works that 
has yet come from the American press. We may say here 
that, while Dr. Sanders’ book is much better than Bade’s, 
the latter is simply the legitimate fruit and logical out- 
come of the teaching of the former. Dr. Sanders accepts 
the premises, but declines to push on to the inevitable con- 
clusion; while Dr. Bade has more courage and logic, and 
hence does not halt midway. However, this assertion 
awaits its proof at the proper place. 

Dr. Sanders’ book was published in 1914. At that time 

104 


A “HISTORY OF THE HEBREWS” 105 


he was the president of Washburn College, Topeka, Kan- 
sas, which was founded by the Congregationalists, “‘but is 
non-sectarian in policy and government.’’ The ‘‘Fore- 
word’”’ of Dr. Sanders’ book would indicate that the volume 
is intended mainly for a college text-book (p. vi). This 
is also implied in his very gracious formula of dedica- 
tion, which is as follows: ‘‘To the Students and Faculty 
of Washburn College, for whom and with whom we have 
spent five happy years.’’ The title and sub-title of the 
book are as follows: ‘‘History of the Hebrews: Their 
Political, Social and Religious Development and Their 
Contribution to World Betterment.”’ 

To mention some of the commendable features of the 
book first, we are glad to say it is comparatively reverent 
in its attitude toward fhe Old Testament. In this re- 
spect it differs widely from the slashing treatment in 
Bade’s book. Dr. Sanders does not directly criticize the 
ethics of the Old Testament, and never holds it up to ridi- 
cule and scorn, but usually gives it a mild kind of de- 
fense; that is, he explains the situations in such a way as 
to make a fair apologetic for some apparent ethical de- 
fects and discrepancies. Indeed, in some respects he of- 
fers quite a satisfactory defense of the Bible. The spirit 
and tone of the book are excellent. Much credit is given 
to the Old Testament for its pure religious teaching and 
powerful influence in the world. In many ways the book 
may seem to be an answer—without the least hint, how- 
ever, that it is meant to be so—to the extreme positions 
of the radical eritics. In this respect the book may be 
somewhat useful, serving as a kind of foil to the ultra- 
radicals. Indeed, it is about the most successful attempt 
at maintaining the ‘‘mediating’’ position that we have yet 
seen among the smaller contributions to Biblical criticism. 
The temper of the book would certainly lead to the con- 


106 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


clusion that its author is a man of a cordial and winsome 
disposition. 

Having said so much in the book’s favor, it is not pleas- 
ant to have to turn to finding flaws; but we must follow 
our conscience and reason. Such a book ought not to 
pass uncensored. The very fact that the writer exhibits 
so fine a spirit, and holds so many evangelical principles, 
makes his book all the more dangerous; all the better cal- 
culated to undermine the faith of young men and women 
in the Bible as an inspired and trustworthy revelation. 
The more truth a writer embodies in the midst of funda- 
mental error, the more insidious will be the peril; for in 
such,a case many minds will not be able to separate the 
truth from the error. Well does Shakespeare warn us of 
the peril of craft in the lines: 


“And oftentimes to win us to our harm 
The instruments of darkness tell us truths.” 


A man who approaches you with a concealed dirk is more 
dangerous than the man who comes flourishing his weapon 
in the open, announcing his intentions. So where Bade’s 
open and frank assault will at once put the student on his 
guard, the suave, subtle, disguised method of the writer 
in question will be apt first to win the student’s confidence, 
disarm his suspicion, and then, ere he knows it, convert him 
to the rationalistic view. We have actually known young 
men who thought Dr. Sanders’ book was sound and evan- 
gelical, not being able to detect its subtle method of de 
stroying the historical character of the Old Testament. 
However, the foregoing assertions must now be made 
good. So let us look frankly at the book itself. We must 
be as brief as possible. We shall deal with the author’s 
main positions, going into detail only in a few cases where 
necessity requires. First, here is a professed ‘‘ History 


A “HISTORY OF THE HEBREWS” 107 


of the Hebrews,’’ drawn mostly from the Old Testament 
itself, and yet it contains not one word about divine in- 
spiration. The word ‘‘inspiration’’ does not occur in the 
index, and we cannot find it in the text. The word ‘‘in- 
spirational’’ occurs (p. 18), but has no reference to 
the doctrine of Biblical inspiration. It may be said that 
the author was not discussing the subject of inspiration, 
but writing a history of the Hebrew people; therefore such 
a discussion would have been irrelevant. But that is only 
an evasion, or at least a very lame apology. Where did 
Dr. Sanders get most of his material for his so-called ‘‘his- 
tory’’? From the Old Testament, which is an integral 
part of our Christian Bible. But Moses and the prophets 
all claimed to receive their messages directly from God 
—so the Bible declares again and again. Would that not 
connote just what we mean to-day by the doctrine of in- 
spiration? Is it dealing adequately with the ‘‘history of 
the Hebrews’’ to ignore that claim, which les at the very 
basis of their religion? Moreover, the New Testament, re- 
ferring expressly to the Old Testament, as is evident from 
the context, says (2 Tim. 3:16): ‘‘Every Scripture is 
inspired of God,’’ ete. (We are convinced that this is 
the correct translation, though others may not agree.) 
Also 2 Pet. 1:20, 21: ‘‘Knowing this first, that no proph- 
ecy of Scripture is of private interpretation; for no 
prophecy ever came by the will of man; but men spake 
from God, being moved by the Holy Spirit.’’ Now to 
write a professed history of the Hebrew people, and draw 
upon their sacred books as the main source of material, and 
yet never even mention the claim of divine inspiration, is 
a manifest evasion of the most vital point in that history. 
No man would try to write a history of Mohammedanism 
without at least recognizing Mohammed’s claim to a di- 
vine revelation, and endeavoring in some way to give an 
account of it. Read Irving’s history, and see whether he 


108 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


side-steps this claim. Would an evangelical writer who 
truly believed in the divine inspiration of the Holy Serip- 
tures have written a history of the Hebrews without say- 
ing something about its claim to a divine origin? Remem- 
ber, too, that the author in his sub- title announces that his 
book is to be, among other things, a history of the “‘re- 
ligrous dev slomnenttr of the Hebrews. <A part of that his- 
tory, lying right there on the surface, is the claim of a di- 
rect divine revelation. 

Next, we call attention to the critical authorities cited 
by our author (pp. 337-353). He calls them ‘* refer- 
ences for the teacher and student.’’ He wants to encour- 
age the habit of looking up these more extended works. 
He says: ‘‘ Attention is called below to some of the best 
untechnical literature available to-day.’? Who are the 
writers cited? With all our searching we can find only 
two really conservative authors in the long list. One of 
them is Dr. James Orr, whose monumental work, “‘The 
Problem of the Old Testament,’’ is once alluded to; but 
even here the reference is a very casual and unimportant 
one. The other conservative book, once cited, is Sir 
William Ramsay’s ‘‘Cities of St. Paul’’—a work which, 
we are sorry to say, we have not yet had time to read care- 
‘fully, but which, if we may judge from his other and 
more recent books, is likely to be conservative. However, 
it must be remembered that Ramsay was once a liberal 
critic, but more thorough investigation converted him to 
the conservative position. See his book, 1916, on *‘ Arche- 
ology and the New Testament.”’ 

Among the critical authors cited by Dr. Sanders are 
the following: Cheyne, Driver, Kent, George Adam 
Smith, Gray (T. B.), Skinner, Ryle, Cornill, Wade, Me- 
Fadyen, Mitchell, Hastings, Budde, Jastrow, Kennedy and 
Riggs. This is certainly a liberal list of liberals. These 
works are not only cited, but a number of them receive 


A “HISTORY OF THE HEBREWS” 109 


special commendation. For instance: ‘‘For a scholarly 
and helpful discussion of the origin of the ideas of these 
chapters (Gen. I-XI), see Jastrow, ‘Hebrew and Baby- 
lonian Traditions,’ 1914; Ryle, ‘The Early Narratives of 
Genesis,’ 1890, ete.’ Also: ‘*The most helpful commentary 
is that by Driver (Westminster Comm.) ’’ 

This list is as remarkable for what it excludes as for 
what it includes. As we have said, with possibly two ex- 
ceptions (and those cited relative to nothing vital), all 
the authors belong to the ‘‘liberal’’ camp. All of them 
go on the assumption that much of the Old Testament is 
composed of myth, legend, folk-lore and tradition, even 
where the Bible, at least on the surface, gives plain his- 
torical narratives. All of them tell us that the Old Tes- 
tament contains many historical and scientific errors and 
contradictions, and that little or none of it can properly 
lay claim to direct divine revelation and inspiration. 
Practically all of these authors accept the ‘‘documentary’’ 
hypothesis, which cuts up the historical portions of the 
Bible into many discrepant parts. All of them, as does 
Dr. Sanders himself, reconstruct the Biblical history to 
fit it into their subjective critical views. 

Here, we are compelled to say, is where this book will 
prove harmful in its effects upon young minds. The con- 
clusions of these ‘‘advanced’’ disintegrating critics are 
set forth as if they were absolutely proved; as if all mod- 
ern scholarship held them; as if there could be no ques- 
tion about their correctness. There is not even a hint, so 
far as we can see, that many of the so-called ‘‘assured 
results’’ of the liberal critics are mere hypotheses, with 
only a slender basis of truth, if any, and that conservative 
scholars have again and again questioned and discredited 
them, and that with powerful arguments. The following 
great conservative writers are never even mentioned by 
Dr. Sanders, but are treated as if they were non ens: 


110 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


Hengstenberg, Havernick, Klostermann, Orelli, Oettli, 
Hommel, Moeller, Koehler, Bissell, Robertson (James), 
Cave, Girdlestone, Urquhart, Sayce, Watson, Lias, Blom- 
field, the authors of ‘‘Lex Mosaica,’’ Redpath, Green, Me- 
Garvey, Hilprecht, Clay, Warfield, McKim, Wilson, Wiener, 
and many more. We mention this long list of great names 
only to show the culpability of an author who ignores 
them, and presents as veritable truth only one side of the 
question in a college text-book. Is it fair, we ask in all 
kindness, to young collegians for an instructor in our 
holy religion to set forth only the liberal positions as if 
nothing had ever been said against them? Is that the way 
to arrive at the truth? Would a fair-minded, whole- 
hearted, and truly scientific teacher give only one side of 
a mooted question, and utterly ignore everything that has 
been said on the other side? Worse than all, not even 
hint that there ts another side? * 

Let us give instances of the unfairness of such a pro- 
eedure. Dr. Sanders says of Driver’s work on Genesis 
that it is ‘‘the most helpful commentary,’’ and constantly 
treats its positions as established. Is it frank for him 
never even to hint that Dr. Orr, in his ‘‘The Problem of 
the Old Testament,’’ has called in question most of Driv- 
er’s positions, and has shown again and again that other 
critics just as learned do not agree with Driver? Why 


* We have another object in giving the above rather formidable list 
of conservatives. In the last few years in this country there has 
been a veritable propaganda of liberal views. These views have 
been popularized by a number of rather spicy writers who have 
simply accepted offhand the views of Graf, Kuenen, Wellhausen, 
Driver and Cheyne, and a special effort has been made to get these 
books into circulation. Many persons have become more or less 
acquainted with this liberal output, but have not seen or read or 
even heard of the deeper, solider, more finely argued works that 
have been published on the conservative side. We wish to call atten- 
tion to these scholarly works, so that men may study both sides of 
the question. Note also what is said anent this matter in our re- 
marks introductory to the ‘‘Selected Bibliography’’ at the close of 
this volume. 


A “HISTORY OF THE HEBREWS” § 111 


did not Dr. Sanders tell his readers that Dr. Henry A. 
Redpath has written a compact (and to our mind a con- 
vineing) rejoinder to Driver in his little book, ‘‘ Modern 
Criticism and Genesis,’’ second and revised edition, 1906? 
When our author recommends Skinner’s commentary on 
Genesis, is he treating his readers and students squarely 
not to tell them that Harold M. Wiener has, in the opin- 
ion of many scholars, effectually demolished Skinner? 
Why does not Dr. Sanders let his readers know that 
President Samuel C. Bartlett, D.D., in his ‘‘The Veracity 
of the Hexateuch,’’ has presented a crushing answer to 
all of Driver’s works published up to 1895? When Dr. 
Sanders, following his masters, Kent, Riggs, Bevan, and 
McFadyen, assigns the book of Daniel to 166 B. C., cen- 
turies after the Bible Daniel’s time, why does he not have 
the grace and frankness to say that Dr. John Urquhart, 
in his ‘‘The Inspiration and Accuracy of the Holy Scrip- 
tures,’’ offered a most powerful argument for the tradi- 
tional view of the book in question? Nor is it right for 
Dr. Sanders to overlook what Dr. Wilson, of Princeton, 
has done in defending the conservative view of Daniel.* 
While Dr. Sanders himself accepts offhand the fragmen- 
tary theory of the Pentateuch, is it right for him never to 
tell his readers that great scholars like William Henry 
Green did not, and many others do not now, hold that 
hypothesis? When he avers without proof that Moses 
could not have put the Hexateuch (he means the Penta- 
teuch) into its present form (p. 18), we think he ought 
to tell his students that great scholars like Orr, Cave, 
Moeller, Green, Urquhart, Lias, Watson, Robertson, and 
McGarvey, do believe that Moses was the author of the 


* The above was written before Dr. Robert Dick Wilson’s monu- 
mental book, ‘‘Studies in Book of Daniel’’ (1917), was published, 
but while chapters of that work were running serially in The Prince- 
ton Theological Review. No one hereafter has a right to deal with 
the Daniel controversy and ignore Dr. Wilson’s work, 


112 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


first five books of the Bible (except, of course, the last 
chapter of Deuteronomy, which may have been added by 
Joshua). Dr. Sanders seemed to be utterly unconscious of 
Dr. Johannes Dahse’s epoch-making article, ‘‘Is a Revo- 
lution in Pentateuchal Criticism at Hand?’’ which was 
published in 1912, and shortly afterward translated into 
English by Edmund McClure, with a telling preface by 
Prof. A. H. Sayee. 

We venture to ask, Is this habit of ignoring the works of 
conservative scholars ethical? We have acquaintance with 
quite a number of conservative teachers of the Bible in 
various colleges and seminaries, but we do not know of 
one who ignores the works of the radical critics. Their 
method is to present both sides of the question, and then 
to try to prove what they honestly believe to be the true 
position. Just so our conservative writers never ignore 
the arguments of the radicals, but examine them critically 
to see whether they are sound or not. Therefore we main- 
tain that conservative scholars are broader and fairer than 
their opponents, and are, at the same time, their peers in 
scholarship. 

Our next duty will be to show Dr. Sanders’ funnier 
tal position on the doctrine of the Bible itself (the science 
of Bibliology). Does his view of the Bible agree with 
what the Bible claims for itself and with the well-known 
‘evangelical view? Here we shall quote, beginning on page 
4: ‘‘The most important contribution made by the He- 
brew nation to the world was its imterpretation of religion. 
More clearly than any other known people in the centuries 
preceding the Christian era the Hebrews thought of God 
as a moral being, a Character, the Father of mankind, who 
rules the world in righteousness and wishes to have it 
pervaded by goodness and friendliness.’’ In our quota- 
tions we shall italicize the words that are significant and 
that afford a clew to the more or less disguised unevangel- 


A “HISTORY OF THE HEBREWS” 113 


ical views of the author. The above sentence has its good 
points, and is very different from the assaults of Bade. 
However, it does not express the Biblical view nor the 
evangelical view. The Bible nowhere indicates that it sets 
forth the Hebraic ‘‘interpretation’’ of religion, but always 
God’s revelation of religion. This is also the evangelical 
view. The Bible does not teach what the ‘‘ Hebrews 
thought of God,’’ but what God revealed Himself to them 
to be; which is also the evangelical position. 

On page 23, section 32, our author says: ‘‘In the first 
eleven chapters of Genesis we find a group of stories which 
convey the ideas of the Hebrew people concerning the cre- 
ation of the world, the beginnings of human life, the con- 
ditions of primitive humanity,’’ ete. ‘‘These ideas for the 
most part they evidently inherited from their Semitie fore- 
fathers and adopted without serious question. Such ideas 
have their proper place in the Bible, not because God 
wished to make a special revelation concerning such facts, 
but because, through these beliefs of the people, correct 
ideas regarding God, man, the universe, and their mutual 
relations could be established.’’ 

Here again the evangelical view is different, holding 
that these chapters contain special divine revelations, and 
not merely the ‘‘beliefs’’ and ‘‘ideas’’ of the Hebrew peo- 
ple. If the first chapter of Genesis contains only a record 
of Semitic ‘‘beliefs’’ and ‘‘ideas,’’ how can we be sure 
that ‘‘in the beginning God created the heavens and the 
earth?’’ If it does not. correctly describe ‘‘the process of 
creation,’’ as Dr. Sanders intimates on page 24, why should 
we accept its statement about the creation itself? Could 
it state a profound and infallible truth in the first verse, 
and then drop into crude error in the verses that immedi- 
ately follow? How are you going to know which state- 
ments are true and which are not? ‘‘Oh! reason teaches 
us that the first verse is true, but that the rest cannot be,’’ 


114 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


the critic replies. But that is rationalism, not Biblical and 
Evangelical Christianity. In view of the innumerable 
egregious and harmful blunders that human reason has 
made in the past, and is making to-day, does it beget much 
confidence in itself as a sure guide? The reason of De- 
mocritus, Epicurus, Lucretius, Plato, Aristotle, Spinoza, 
Tyndal, Huxley, and Spencer did not lead them to believe 
in the doctrine of divine creation. Nor did the reason of 
Haeckel, Vogt and Feuerbach convince them of such a con- 
ception. The difficulty with such views is that they sim- 
ply destroy the inspiration and infallibility of the Bible 
in any and all of its parts. 

Here, then, is our author’s fundamental conception of 
the Bible—it is a record of human ‘‘ideas’’ and ‘‘beliefs,’’ 
many of them wrong, some of them right. Sometimes the 
author uses the word ‘‘revelation’’—but very sparingly— 
never, though, in the objective and infallible sense, but 
only in the subjective sense, which permits of almost any 
amount of the admixture of human error. To our mind, 
such a revelation is little better than none at all, and is 
only that of natural theology. Without arguing the ques- 
tion now, we submit to the Christian people of the land 
whether they want their sons and daughters to receive such 
teaching when they send them to college. If they do, that 
is their option; this is a free country; but they should at 
least be apprised of the real inner character of the in- 
struction. 

Next we must investigate Dr. Sanders’ teaching on the 
historicity of the Bible. The threads of truth and error 
are so closely and deftly woven together that it is diffi- 
cult to separate them. Many objectionable sentences and 
phrases might be cited from the ‘‘Introductory Studies,”’ 
but we shall begin with page 23, where the author comes 
out a little more in the open. He says: ‘‘The history 
of the Hebrew people really begins* with the crossing of 


A “HISTORY OF THE HEBREWS” 115 


the Jordan River and the conquest and settlement of 
Canaan as a permanent home.’’ Yes, according to 
Cheyne, Driver, Skinner, Gray, Kent, McFadyen, eic., 
but not according to the Bible. According to the Bible, 
the history of the Hebrew people began with the eall of 
Abraham, who was separated by the Almighty from the 
rest of mankind to become the father of His “‘chosen peo- 
ple.’ The record of events from Abraham to the cross- 
ing of the Jordan bears just as distinct a historical at- 
mosphere, just as much an impression of verisimilitude, 
as does the record afterward. Note the aplomb of the au- 
thor. He is simply cocksure. He gives no clew to the fact 
that the following great scholars are against his opinion 
that Israelitish history began when he says it did: Keil, 
Delitsch, Klostermann, Orelli, Moeller, Orr, Cave, Green, 
Lias, Watson, and scores of others. An author has no 
right to pretend that there is unanimity of opinion among 
scholars on such a mooted point. 

Our author continues (note the adroitness of his lan- 
ouage): ‘‘For hundreds of years before the entrance into 
Canaan, however, the Hebrew people were in making. 
Our knowledge of this period is very scanty.’’ We hope 
one of Dr. Sanders’ innocent students will ask him why 
it is so ‘‘scanty.’’ There is a pretty full and detailed his- 
tory given in the Pentateuch; in fact, by far the greater 
part of the Pentateuch is occupied with a recital of the 
history of the Hebrew people prior to their ‘‘crossing of 
the Jordan River.’’? Observe what follows: ‘“‘What we 
do know about it is derived from the first five Biblical 
books, Genesis to Deuteronomy, and mainly from Genesis 
and Exodus.’? Why not the other books ‘‘mainly’’ as 
well as these two? Continuing: ‘‘Like every history of 
the beginnings of a race, it is told in the form of stories, 
which explain the origin of its institutions and describe its 
great leaders. Such stories are fascinating in their in- 


116 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


terest. They are the material out of which we make his- 
tory, but their greater value as Biblical material lies in 
their portrayal of strong, true types of character and in 
their emphasis upon God’s share in human affairs.’? 
This evasive, guast way of saying things is what we do 
not like in the class of writers to which our author be- 
longs. Why do they not come out plainly and say they 
do not believe that the first five books of the Bible are 
historical, but are largely made up of traditions and folk- 
stories? Is this equivocal method adopted for an ulterior 
purpose? Look at the above. This history ‘‘is told in 
the form of stories.’’ But there are true and untrue 
stories. So here is a word used that has a double mean- 
ing. It looks as if he means that these stories are fictions. 
He says ‘‘like every history of the beginnings of a race.”’ 
This would seem to indicate that the Biblical ‘‘stories’’ are 
just like those of other nations. Then what is there to 
make the Bible a unique book, and a special revelation of 
God’s character, works and redeeming grace? But out of 
such material as these ‘‘stories’’ ‘‘we make history.’’ That 
means that the stories are not history, but we must take 
them and disentangle from them the few threads of truth 
they contain. That is what it means, or it has no meaning. 
And that means again that we to-day, living over four 
thousand years after the events, must ‘‘make history’’ 
out of the tangle. What becomes of any special divine 
revelation from such a medley of fiction and truth? Yet 
this author proceeds to state that the greater value of this 
Biblical material lies ‘‘in their emphasis upon God’s share 
in human affairs.’’ But if the majority of the events never 
occurred, how can you prove from them that God has had 
much share in ‘“‘human affairs?’’ As we have said at other 
times, the difficulty with the rationalists is with their heads 
rather than with their hearts. Our perusal of many authors 


A “HISTORY OF THE HEBREWS” 11% 


leads us to think that rationalists are the poorest reasoners 
in the world. 

Note again on page 24 (he is speaking of the early chap- 
ters of Genesis) : ‘‘Nor do they, except in a symbolic way, 
throw light upon the exact method of man’s creation or 
upon the origin of human occupations. God has given men 
the opportunity of discovering such facts for themselves. 
His message to the world through these stories was a re- 
ligious message.’’ 

That word ‘‘symbolic’’ is a la the Cheyne-Driver-Kent 
school, but not according to their equals, if not superiors, 
Orr, Cave, Robertson, Urquhart, Green and Redpath. 
One of these references is to the Biblical account of the 
creation of man. If that narrative is ‘‘symbolical,’’ in 
what way is it so? What are the points of comparison? 
The Genetical record is: ‘‘And Jehovah Elohim formed 
man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nos- 
trils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.’’ 
In what way is that a symbolical account? It is easy to 
give the interpretation of the parables of Uriah’s ewe 
lamb and of the prodigal son; but we wish some liberal 
critic would give us the precise interpretation of this 
‘“symbolieal’’ story of man’s creation. A good symbol 
ought not to be difficult to explain. Nor can we see why 
the Biblical writer should have here used symbolical 
speech in describing the genesis of the human family. Of 
all places in the world, this would be about the most un- 
suitable one to use figures of rhetoric, instead of plain, 
literal prose. It is very poor symbolism, too, if that is 
what it is; for thus far it has led the vast majority of 
Jews and Christians to believe that it is literal history. 
Only a crude, not to say a dishonest, writer would write 
like that. Then what becomes of the ‘‘religious’’ value of 
such a bungling writer? However, if it is true history, 
and gives a true account of the beautiful, gracious, con- 


118 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


descending way in which God brought man into being in 
His own image, then indeed is its religious value beyond 
computation; for then we perceive the basic reason for 
God’s high evaluation of and wonderful love for man, and 
therefore why, when man fell into sin, He sacrificed His 
only begotten Son to redeem him. 

Our author also contends that God has given men the 
ability to discover such facts as ‘‘the exact method of 
man’s ereation.’? We wonder when men have made that 
marvelous discovery. It must have been very recently. 
There are many guesses and hypotheses, but every true 
and modest scientist will tell you that no one to-day knows 
just the precise method of man’s origin. Some of the 
radical critics ought to read the latest testimonies of sci- 
ence. Quite recently one of the greatest present-day sci- 
entists declared that, so far as science is concerned, the 
origin of man is wrapped in complete obscurity; science 
has no positive word to say on the subject. If man’s origin 
is wrapped in obscurity, what do we know about the pur- 
pose of his being and about his destiny? But thanks be 
to God, the Bible tells us clearly and beautifully about his 
origin, his purpose and his destiny. This gives real mean- 
ing to life. 

On page 25 Dr. Sanders gives his idea of the first chap- 
ter of Genesis. ‘‘This wonderful narrative,’’ he says, ‘‘is 
really a stately poem about God.’’ We are glad to note 
that our writer expresses here and there seemingly real 
heartfelt admiration for the Bible. In this respect he 
manifests a much better spirit than some of his fellow- 
writers who accept theoretically the same positions he oc- 
cupies. However, here we note that what he formerly 
called a ‘‘story’’ he now calls a ‘‘poem.’’ Of course, a 
poem may be a story too; yet it does seem that he is ready 
to call this part of the Bible almost anything but history. 
He continues: ‘‘It depicts an orderly, gradual process 


A “HISTORY OF THE HEBREWS” 119 


of creation under the guidance of God and in accordance 
with His will. But God and man, rather than the crea- 
tive process, are the centers of real interest. The poem 
shows in dignified fashion how the whole universe finds 
its explanation in God.’’ 

_ Every evangelical believer will be giad for these trib- 
utes. Of course Dr. Sanders is a theist. No one would 
ever accuse him of being a materialist. Nevertheless, he 
picks and chooses among the statements of the Bible, as 
when he intimates above that we need not accept the Bib- 
lical statements about ‘‘the process of creation,’’ but need 
accept only what is said about ‘‘God and man.’’ So again 
it is human reason, not the Bible, that is the final judge. 
Afterwards he says that the ‘‘three great verses’’ of this 
first chapter of the Bible are the first, the 27th and the 
31st, and some would add the 28th. But why make this 
distinction? Why not accept all the verses? Was not 
the getting of the earth into a habitable condition, so that 
man could dwell upon it and have communion with God,— 
was this not also of ‘‘religious’’ value? If our author 
should reply that ‘‘the process of creation’’ deseribed 
here is not in harmony with science, we would ask, Whose 
science? That of Agassiz, Dana, Dawson and Quenstedt, 
or that of Haeckel, Vogt and Feuerbach? 

Coming to the ‘‘story’’ of man’s creation in Gen, 2:4-24, 
our writer remarks: ‘‘It answers, in the simple, pictorial 
form used by primitive minds, the question of the origin 
of human life.’? So it was only another of the ‘‘ideas’’ of 
the Hebrews. Again there is no revelation here; merely 
human ways of looking at things. The divinity of the 
book fades out almost to the vanishing point. See how 
he volatilizes everything into mere ‘‘symbolism’’; a Chris- 
tian Scientist could not do it much better: ‘‘But the gar- 
den of Eden was more a symbol than a geographical loca- 
tion’? (p. 26). It means that God gave man every 


120 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


chance to exercise his powers and gratify his needs. The 
tree of the knowledge of good and evil signifies that man 
was not only to work and enjoy himself, but must also at- 
tain moral good, and so have a test. True manhood con- 
sists in free moral agency. Likewise, ‘‘the beautiful 
story of the creation of woman symbolizes the true rela- 
tionship of the sexes, the natural dependence of woman 
upon man, her fitness to share life with him, and the won- 
derful closeness of union in true marriage.’’ 

This effort comes about as near interpreting the ‘‘sym- 
bolism,’’ if that is what it is, as any attempt we have yet 
seen, It is a revival of the old allegorical method of 
Origen, and has a touch of Swedenborgianism and Chris- 
tian Science as well. By that method of hermeneutics 
you can find almost anything you want to in the histori- 
eal narratives of the Bible. But we fear it will not an- 
swer for scientific theology and interpretation. It is read- 
ing very profound moral and spiritual truths into the 
story. But if this chapter is only ‘‘the simple, pictorial 
form used by primitive minds,’’ we wonder how such un- 
tutored minds could write ‘‘poems’’ and ‘‘stories’’ teach- 
ing such fine and exalted truths. We are sure that would 
not agree with the theory of evolution, which makes man 
with the ‘‘primitive mind”’ only a little grade higher than 
the ape. If you say it was divine inspiration that pro- 
duced, through those ‘‘ primitive minds,’’ these stories and 
poems, then we do not see why the divine Spirit did not 
lead the writers to narrate the process of human creation 
as it actually occurred. Why did the Spirit select a rhe- 
torical form that has been mistaken for actual history by 
the vast majority of Jews and Christians through all the 
centuries? If man and woman were not brought into be- 
ing as the Bible says, could not the inspiring Spirit of 
God just as well have told the truth as to make up this 
beautiful piece of fiction? On the other hand, if the nar- 


A “HISTORY OF THE HEBREWS” 121 


rative is not divinely inspired, then the theughts sym- 
bolized are far too deep and high for the minds of pri- 
meval savages. However, if the narrative is accepted at 
its face value, and is the product of divine inspiration, 
both the form and the teaching are accounted for, and 
come down to us duly authorized. 

The story of the fall of our first parents into sin is like- 
wise vaporized into symbol or parable, but we cannot tarry 
here. In other writings we have endeavored to prove the 
historicity of this narrative (see ‘‘The Rational Test,’’ 
Chapter V). Next we note that Dr. Sanders omits, with- 
out a word of explanation, the whole Biblical account from 
Adam to the flood. Was not this an evasion? Is that 
the way for a true and honest teacher of religion to treat 
the Bible? In spite of the great diversity of opinion on 
the subject, our author says the ‘‘story of the flood is of 
Babylonian origin.’’ Is it right for him to keep his read- 
ers and students in ignorance of the fact that many great 
scholars think that the Genetical account of the flood is 
the original inspired history of that catastrophe, while the 
Babylonian story is a later version and perversion of it? 
And why should not that be the case? According to the 
Bible, Abraham, the Babylonians and all other people of 
the time were the descendants of Noah; and therefore, if 
Abraham was really chosen of God to be His representa- 
tive, the father of His people, and the bearer of His re- 
demptive plan, God could easily have kept the facts of 
the flood pure and uncorrupted in His servant’s hands. 
This hypothesis will adequately account for the fact that 
the Biblical narrative, both in purpose and manner, is 
toto coelo above that of the Babylonians. (See Dr. George 
A. Barton’s ‘‘ Archeology and the Bible,’’ 1916.) 

It is a pleasure to admit here that Dr. Sanders, instead 
of finding fault with God for sending the flood, as Dr. 
Bade does, justifies God in thus punishing the wicked 


122 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


world. While we are glad he does this, we think the force 
of the moral lesson he derives is largely lost if the flood 
was not a real historic occurrence. Fiction may have its 
use for many more or less superficial people; but those 
who think more deeply will be likely to say: ‘‘Oh! but 
_the incident never took place; it is only a bit of imagina- 
tion.”’ We cannot agree with the author when he grows 
almost eloquent over the ‘‘pedagogical fitness’? (p. 30) 
of this symbolical method of conveying religious instruc- 
tion. If the writer or writers, inspired or uninspired, 
wanted to teach by parables, they should have given their 
literary productions the parabolic cast and form. They 
were not ethical, therefore, in using the historic form, and 
thus deceiving the vast majority of Bible students. 
Moreover, fiction is not the solid, deep and permanent form 
of instruction, and for real pedagogical value is not to be 
compared with facts. Besides, it is inconsistent to think 
that God would give to the world a real religion, meant 
_ for their highest temporal and eternal welfare, and yet 
would separate it from the stream of human history, and 
hang it up in the air in the form of imaginative stories. 
While we believe that God cares for the more lightsome 
moods of human life, yet we cannot help believing that, 
when He is dealing in matters of revelation which involve 
human redemption from sin and eternal death, He would 
use the more serious and perduring pedagogical methods. 

Our writer pursues the same course throughout his 
book in dealing with the historical records of the Bible. 
Nowhere will he accept the Bible at its face value. While 
he differs from the more radical critics in defending the 
teaching of the Bible—and for this we again commend 
him—he otherwise accepts their premises and conclusions, 
The patriarchs are rather nebulous characters in his 
hands; the Bible representations are ‘‘idealized portraits”? 
(p. 31); sometimes they seem to have a little historic 


A “HISTORY OF THE HEBREWS” 1923 


reality; then they vapor off into tribal movements again. 
They shimmer and glance before you, but will not remain 
still and steady enough for you to get your camera fo- 
cused upon them. Not so does the Bible represent them. 
But that boots little with the rationalists. With them, not 
the Bible, but their theories are decisive. 

Dr, Sanders’ treatment of Moses is no more satisfac- 
tory. This great character, so firmly and graphically 
drawn in the Bible, flits almost like a shadow across our 
author’s pages. He seems to treat him as an actual his- 
torical character, and yet nowhere does he say so plainly, 
and thus we are left in doubt as to whether he is much more 
than an idealized hero of a fiction-producing age. For in- 
stance, he says (p. 67): ‘‘The casual references of these 
narratives to Moses are interesting.’?’ When you remem- 
ber how boldly Moses stands out in the Biblical account, 
from the beginning of Exodus to the close of Deuteronomy, 
you wonder at the carelessness of such a remark. The au- 
thor himself goes on to mention quite a number of very 
dcfinite things that are ascribed to Moses, showing that 
the references to him were far from ‘‘casual.’’ Then he 
actually stops to eulogize Moses, but whether he means a 
real Moses or a fictitious Moses, deponent sayeth not. At 
the close of this section (p. 68) he says: ‘‘It is not 
strange that Jewish tradition spoke of him in superlatives 
(Deut. 34:10-12), and loved to refer to him as ‘Jehovah’s 
servant’ (Deut. 34:5) and as ‘the man of God’ (Ezra 3:2; 
Ps. 90:1).’’? So it is everywhere—‘‘tradition,’’ ‘‘story,’’ 
**folk-lore,’’? ‘‘symbolism,’’ ‘‘idealization,’’ ‘‘parable,’’ 
“Hebrew ideas,’’ ‘‘poetry,’’ ‘‘popular tales,’’ ‘‘primitive 
ideas’’—yes, everything but what the evangelical believer 
wants and needs: history, fact, revelation, inspiration. 
And we are bound to say that you find almost everything 
in this professed ‘‘ History of the Hebrews’’ but the his- 
tory! If that is not rationalism, we beg to know what is! 


124 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


With one breath the author tries to hold on to the Bible; 
with the next he spoils it all by trying to undermine its 
inspiration and authority. 

Before we close, let us give a sample of his method of 
treating miracles, just to see what a past-master he is in 
“‘making’’ history instead of faithfully recording it. The 
miracles of crossing the Jordan and the fall of Jericho 
are handled in this free and easy way (pp. 78, 79): 

‘These two events were of first importance in the story 
of the Hebrew people.’’ Note, ‘‘events’’ and ‘‘story.’’ 
Can you get any determinate kind of teaching out of such 
use of language? ‘‘Hebrew poets and story tellers loved 
to recount the thrilling episodes which introduced the ac- 
quisition of their national home. God’s share in the task 
was very clear to them.’’ What a free use of his Biblical 
material! Where does he read that they were given to 
telling these marvelous tales? Perhaps they were, but 
where does the Bible say so? Then: ‘‘As in the case of 
the narrative of the Deliverance (section 114), the story 
of the crossing of the Jordan is a combination of more 
than one earlier account of the event. One of these, ap- 
parently the earliest, was relatively straightforward and 
simple. It represented Joshua as encouraging the people 
to expect aid of Jehovah in their emergency, and declared 
that, at a time when the crossing was unanticipated (3:15) 
by the Canaanites and unopposed, something happened far 
up the river, perhaps a distant landslide, which dammed 
the river temporarily, and left its bed exposed, so that the 
Israelites got across. The other narrative greatly magni- 
fied Joshua (3:7,8; 4:9,10,14) and the part played by 
the priests and the sacred ark. It also seemed to state 
that the water of the Jordan stood just above the path- 
way of Israel like a wall (3:16a).”’ 

Of course, we cannot now presume to make a refuta- 
tion of this position. Our purpose is rather to show 


A “HISTORY OF THE HEBREWS” = 125’ 


clearly this author’s free and liberal way of handling the 
Biblical records instead of accepting them at their face 
value. However, if he had done the fair thing, he would 
have said that Lange and Keil do not accept the explana- 
tion here given, nor admit that the narrative is made up 
of several contradictory ‘‘earlier accounts.’’ Besides, he 
should have known and explained that Prof. George Fred- 
erick Wright made first-hand investigations in the valley 
of the Jordan, and gives a lucid explanation of how the 
waters may have been parted, just as the Bible says, by 
God’s miraculous use of secondary forces, just as He used 
the wind in the case of the parting of the Red Sea and the 
bringing of the quails in the wilderness. (See Wright’s 
‘*Scientific Confirmations of the Old Testament History,’’ 
1906, pp. 130-144.) Here we merely pause to remark 
that, if our author uses so free a hand in getting rid of 
the supernatural in the Bible, is there no danger that its 
religious authority may be invalidated? 

Just one more specimen (p. 79): ‘‘In the story of the 
capture of Jericho the oldest narrative stated that the 
little army marched around the city in silence for six 
days, then captured it with a cheer and a sudden dash. 
Such tactics agree with Joshua’s generalship in other bat- 
tles (8:10-21; 10:9). Whether the sudden collapse of the 
city walls is to be explained by a divinely ordered earth- 
quake, or figuratively as an expression of the astonishing 
ease with which it was captured, no one can surely say.’’ 

We would advise one of this professor’s students to ask 
him what the Bible says about this event, and that in the 
plainest and most vivid language. Note that our author 
hints—that is the worst of it, hints—that there were ex- 
tant several contradictory accounts of Jericho’s fall. 
That is what he means when he speaks about the ‘‘oldest’’ 
account. What becomes of the doctrine of the inspira- 
tion of the Old Testament in such hands? How can a 


126 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


book containing so many crude errors be a book of re- 
ligious value, to say nothing of religious authority ? 

The limits of space forbid our pursuing the subject fur- 
ther; nor is it necessary. Our purpose in conducting this 
study and offering these strictures has not been primarily 
Biblical Criticism, but Apologetics. Wherever Biblical 
Criticism seeks to undermine the integrity and authority 
of the Biblical records and undertakes to pronounce upon 
the doctrine of inspiration, it invades the department of 
both Apologetics and Dogmaties, and therefore cannot be 
permitted to go unnoticed and uncensored. In the Evan- 
gelical Church especially, where we look upon the Word 
of God as the chief means of grace, it behooves us to de- 
fend the integrity and inspiration of the Sacred Serip- 
tures. 

We are constrained to add a paragraph at a later date, 
while revising our manuscript. In spite of all its defects, 
its lack of fairness and thoroughness, the publishers are 
still advertising Dr. Sanders’ book and pushing its sale. 
A circular just at hand (July 22, 1919) has this to say of 
the book: ‘‘The story of the Hebrew people in the light 
of the most recent scholarship is told in plain and simple 
words. Jt ws the best history of the Hebrew people in one 
volume.’’ (The italicized sentence is underscored by the 
publishers for emphasis.) We rejoin that the work is not 
written “in the light of the most recent scholarship,” but 
only in accord with the partisan views of the liberalistie 
coterie, who read only one side of the controversy. It is 
not a ‘‘history of the Hebrew people,’’ but that history 
warped and twisted, shredded and frayed according to 
the author’s suliboking and one-sided opinions. “The 
author has no historical perspective; he can see history 
only on a flat surface. 


CHAPTER VII 
THE WAYS OF THE CRITICS 


A Sharp Contrast Between the Lnberals and Cvonser- 
vatwes * 


A srupy of a number of recent books on the so-called 
‘‘liberal’’ side of the problem of Biblical criticism brings 
out some strikingly characteristic ‘‘ways of the critics.’’ 
The thing that constantly surprises us is the aplomb of the 
liberalistic writers, their assumption of being in possession 
of the whole truth, with no recognition of the masterly 
works published on the evangelical side. 

One of these recent books (1918) is Dr. W. E. Hopkins’ 
‘‘The History of Religion.”’ The author seems to deal 
fairly and historically with the ethnic religions, but when 
he comes to the Hebrew religion, he loses his sagacity, and 
warps and twists the history in accordance with the theory 
of evolution, of which he is a proponent. No matter what 
the Bible says, he knows better than that revered Book. He 
merely echoes the views of the Graf-Kuenen-Wellhausen- 
Cheyne-Driver school, without so much as stopping to con- 
sider whether its teachings are well founded or not. State- 
ment upon statement is made with a cock-sureness that 
would be amusing, if it were not so vital in its influence on 


* This chapter repeats a few things that have been said in previous 
chapters. It first appeared as a separate and distinct article in 
The Lutheran Quarterly (January, 1920), and therefore had to be 
complete in itself. The author prefers to leave it, with some slight 
revision, in its original form, so that all the statements of the 
chapter may stand in their proper logical relations. . 


127 


128 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


the destiny of immortal souls. Dr. Hopkins’ treatment of 
__Whristianity is so inadequate and one-sided, so lacking in 
the spiritual and uplifting element, that, if it were a cor- 
rect representation, our holy religion would not be worth 
holding and contending for. If Christianity is what he 
makes it out to be, we for one would be willing to renounce 
it as absurd. Apparently, however, the author is not ac- 
quainted with any historians save those of the latitudi- 
narian order. Yet his work is intended for a text-book in 
our American colleges and universities. 

Another book of the same sort is Professor Albert C. 
Knudson’s ‘‘The Religious Teaching of the Old Testa- 
ment.’’ In this work the critical assumptions of the Cheyne- 
Driver school are all taken for granted. Says a competent 
critic of the book: ‘‘The long controversy about the Pen- 
tateuch has now reached a stage at which it is no longer 
possible for any writer who claims to be up to date simply 
to put before his public the exploded conclusions of the 
Astrue-Kuenen-Wellhausen school as the last word of schol- 
arship.’’ Yet that is precisely what Knudson has done. 
His work was published in 1918. Was he not aware of 
the publication of the International Standard Bible En- 
eyclopedia, with its array of profound scholars on the con- 
servative side? If he was, he gives no signs. If he was 
not, what is to be said of his ‘‘scholarship’’? 

Here comes another book copyrighted in 1919: ‘‘How 
the Bible Grew,’’ by Frank Grant Lewis, issued by the 
University of Chicago Press. The very phrasing of the 
title gives a clew to the character of the book. The Bible 
‘‘orew,’’? was evolved; it was not God-breathed, divinely 
given and inspired! We quote with endorsement from a 
review of this book in ‘‘ Bibliotheca Sacra’’: ‘‘This volume 
is devoted from beginning to end to popularizing the docu- 
mentary theories of the Wellhausen school as applied to the 
Old Testament, and of the moderately radical critics of the 


~~ 


THE WAYS OF THE CRITICS 129 


New Testament. It gives no indication of the writer’s 
familiarity with the more recent discussions relating to the 
authorship of the Pentateuch, or of the most recent conclu- 
sions concerning the date of the writings of the New Testa- 
ment books. There is scarcely a single reference to a con- 
servative author. The lay reader will, therefore, find it a 
blind guide to the real truth.’’ 

Another book, though printed in 1914, has just come 
into our hands. It is Dr. J. Paterson Smyth’s ‘‘The Bible 
in the Making, in the Light of Modern Research.’’ There 
are many good things in this work. The author tries to 
uphold the doctrine of divine inspiration, and seems to 
think that he has succeeded. But a careful reading un- 
covers the fact that he trains in the Driver school of 
eritics. With him the Bible is largely made up of tradi- 
tion, folklore, legend and Hebraic ‘‘ideas.’’ How can he 
correlate this view with any doctrine of divine inspira- 
tion that is worth holding? Many fine recent writers 
have proved this position to be untenable. But note, there 
is no evidence in the book that the author is even aware 
of any of the many stalwart works in favor of the con- 
servative position that have been issued in recent years. 
With the utmost cock-sureness the critical views are ac- 
cepted and propagated as settled once for all. One is al- 
most tempted to say that the ‘‘advanced’’ critics are becom- 
ing ultra-conservatives and extreme traditionalists, 

Among the many recently issued liberalistic books, we 
eall attention to Dr. Douglas Clyde MacIntosh’s ‘‘ Theology 
as an Empirical Science’’ (1919).* In dealing with this 
work, we shall make use of our own review of it in the 
January (1920) number of The Lutheran Quarterly. 

Among its merits may be mentioned its intellectual qual- 


* This book does not belong technically to the class of works deal- 
ing with Biblical Criticism; yet most of its theological positions are 
based on the assumptions of the more radical critics, and therefore 
it comes properly under the strictures of this chapter. 


130 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


ity. It certainly is a labored attempt to reduce theology 
to an empirical science, however short it may fall of the 
goal at which it has aimed. The author is a Doctor of 
Philosophy, and his work on every page indicates the depth 
of his philosophical studies. Although he does not claim 
the degree of Doctor of Theology on the title-page, we are 
there informed that he is Dwight Professor of Theology in 
Yale University. He is known as the author of several 
previous works of a scholarly character. His researches in 
philosophy have determined his style of presentation, and 
have greatly colored his theological views. You must un- 
derstand the abstruse terms of philosophy to understand 
his writing. 

We agree with the author that Christian theology is an 
empirical science. Not only do we believe it to be so in 
the restricted sense in which he uses the word ‘‘empirical,”’ 
namely, ‘‘experimental’’ (p. 2), but also in the wider sense 
of dealing with clearly observed and well-validated data 
from which legitimate inductions may be drawn. How- 
ever, the grave fault of the work is this: it whittles Chris- 
tian experience down to the ‘‘irreducible minimum,’’ and 
that minimum is reached by a labored rationalizing process, 
and not, after all, by a full, clear, simple, joyous Chris- 
tian experience. And what is this much-shrunken ‘‘mini- 
mum’’ of Christian faith? It is that the God of the universe 
is sufficiently dependable, and so His universe is depend- 
able, and Christ is the one person in history who best taught 
this doctrine and exemplified it in His life and experience. 
God may not be omnipotent, but He is sufficiently pow- 
erful to hold the sovereignty of the cosmos in His hands, 
and so we may rely on Him for help. Relevant to the last 
point, just how, we beg to know, does the Christian soul 
experience that God is powerful enough to be trustworthy 
even though He may not be omnipotent? No; such an at- 
tenuated doctrine is not a matter of experience; it is a 


THE WAYS OF THE CRITICS 131 


rationalistic conclusion. But even at that it is not good, 
cogent reasoning; for if God were not all-powerful, and if, | 
therefore, there were the least strain upon Him in uphold- 
ing the universe, He would by and by, as the age-cycles 
pass, grow weary, and the universe would drop. If we are 
going to use reason instead of experience, let us make our 
rational processes more thorough-going. 

As our author whittles down experience to the minimum, 
so he deals with the Bible, the Old and New Testaments 
alike. For example, he gets back to the only New Testa- 
ment “‘sources’’ he is willing to acknowledge: they are 
Mark’s gospel and St. Paul’s letters. But even these he 
pares down to the “‘irreducible minimum.’’ Mark gives the 
record of many miracles. Indeed, in proportion to the 
length of his gospel, Mark tells of more miracles than any 
other evangelist. But Dr. MacIntosh cannot admit these 
miracles, and therefore he criticizes and reduces even his 
original sources, and either cuts out the accounts of the 
miracles or tries to explain them on some kind of natural- 
istie ground. These supernatural occurrences do not fit 
into the mold of ‘‘the modern mind.’’ Even the resurrec- 
tion is denied, and the ascension of Christ to the right hand 
of God is easned out of court as opposed to our modern 
views of astronomy, which are no longer geocentric. 

We beg to ask whether this rationalistic denial of Biblical 
miracles can properly belong to ‘‘empirical’’ or ‘“experi- 
mental’’ theology. Has any one ever learned by actual 
experience that the miracles did not occur? On the con- 
trary, is it not a fact that many persons in the history of 
the Church who could not, in their natural state, believe 
in the supernatural element in the Bible, have been con- 
vinced of its reality by a genuine experience of regenera- 
tion? Usually the man who has had such an experience, no 
matter what his previous predilections may have been, has 
no. difficulty in accepting the Bible miracles, Did the 


132 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


apostles get their experience, for whose verity they were 
willing to suffer and die, with or without miracles? Is it 
not true that the great Christian souls of the centuries who 
have had a great religious experience, one that made them 
flaming evangelists and defenders of the faith, were brought 
to believe in the Biblical. miracles through the experience 
of conversion? No; our author makes Christian experi- 
ence too meager a thing to be of real value to the soul and 
to fill it with missionary zeal. 

As he can tolerate no miracles, so, of course, he cannot 
endure the doctrine of the miraculous conception of Christ 
by the Virgin Mary. Listen to him (p. 53): ‘‘In view, 
then, of these various strands of damaging evidence, and 
since, apart from this story, there is no basis for supposing 
that human parthenogenesis is even possible, it seems not 
unreasonable to suppose that the virgin-birth story is a 
legend, comparable with the similar, although more crudely 
expressed, birth-legends that grew up about Greek and 
Roman heroes, and such religious personalities as Gautama 
(the Buddha), Krishna and Shakara.’’ We might quote 
more to the same effect, but our sense of reverence is al- 
ready sufficiently shocked by the above sentence. Our au- 
thor devotes about a page and a third to the virgin-birth, 
and then lightly dismisses it as unworthy of belief. What 
are we to think of such scant treatment of a vital doctrine 
in view of the great and searching works of Orr,* Sweet,t 
Knowling t and Thorburn § in vindication of our Lord’s 
virgin birth? No; the'liberalist cannot get rid of the great 
mass of facts and arguments that these scholars present, 
simply by ignoring them. Moreover, does a rejection of 


*“«The Virgin Birth of Christ.’’ 

bee Birth and Infancy of Jesus Christ’? (a powerful argu- 
ment). 

¥‘‘Our Lord’s Virgin Birth and the Criticism of To-day.’’ 

§ ‘A Critical Examination of the Evidences for the Doctrine of 
the Virgin Birth.’’ (See also Chapter VI of the author’s book, ‘‘ The 
Rational Test.’’) 


THE WAYS OF THE CRITICS 133 


the miraculous conception of our Lord belong to the content 
of a Christian experience? We trow not. Then how can 
such categorical denial belong to a system of ‘‘empirical’’ 
theology? On the other hand, Christian history will be 
likely to afford indubitable proof that the most thorough- 
going Christian experience has always come with accept- 
ance of this doctrine. And why not? What is one of the 
outstanding elements of a complete and joyful Christian 
assurance? Surely that Christ was a supernatural being. 
Then he must have had a supernatural conception. 

As for the doctrine of substitutional atonement, in which 
Christ really made expiation for sin by suffering the pen- 
alty of transgression in the stead of sinners, our author will 
have none of it. All the Biblical passages in both the Old 
and New Testaments that teach the doctrine of substitution 
are ruled out as speculations, illusions or later accretions. 
But that is rationalism, not empiricism. No one has ever 
experienced that Christ did not die to make propitiation 
for sin, Speculative theology may reject the doctrine of 
vicarious atonement, but experimental theology never can. 
On the contrary, we wonder whether many a Christian does 
not to-day experience the joy of pardon and salvation when 
he reads such passages as these: ‘‘He was wounded for our 
transgressions ; He was bruised for our iniquities . .. and 
with His stripes we are healed ;’’ ‘‘ Herein is love, not that 
we loved God, but that He loved us, and gave His Son to 
be the propitiation for our sins;’’ ‘‘The Son of man came 
not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His 
life a ransom for many.’’ We venture to say that millions 
of Christian men, women and children have received their 
assurance of truth, pardon and salvation through the im- 
pingement and appeal of such passages as the above, ac- 
cepted in their literal sense and at their face value. 

But we must not amplify further. We venture to say 

that a real, full, positive Christian experience, an experi- 


| 134 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


ence ‘‘at its best,’’ is not the be-littled and be-whittled 
experience this author depicts. We also venture to assert 
that our orthodox systems of theology are based more 
soundly upon an empirical foundation than is the slender 
structure of this Yale professor. 

We had in mind to give a list of the liberalistic books 
issued in the years 1918-1920—that is, since the war—but 
we see no special need for advertising them here. One of 
them (John W. Buckham’s ‘‘ Progressive Religious Thought 
in America,’’ 1919) is a veritable eulogium on the type of 
theology he’! a-° taught by Bushnell, Munger, Gordon 
(George A.), '‘Juchcz, Egbert and Newman Smyth, Gladden 
and others. And what has been the ‘‘progress’’ made by 
these ‘‘advanced’’ thinkers? It is made up largely of nega.. 
tions: namely, that systems of theology are wrong and im- 
possible, that the Bible is not infallible, that a piacular (| 
atonement is absurd, and that orthodoxy is not progressive 
and scientific. Of real constructive contributions to clear 
theological thinking we find very few, if any. After read- 
ing the book through from beginning to end, we closed it 
with the feeling that this kind of ‘‘progressive’’ theology 
is vague and indeterminate, and seems to get nowhere; so 
we fail to see the much-vaunted ‘‘progress’’ in it. Near 
the close of his book the author admits that the New The- 
ology has inadequate conceptions of sin and of its ‘‘flinty 
factuality.’’ But that is a fatal defect; for a defective idea 
of sin spells a defective idea of redemption, and hence of 
the Redeemer. Many of the good things that our author 
claims as the discoveries of the ‘‘progressives’’ are to be 
found in the conservative systems also, and some of them 
were taught long ago. ‘Take an instance, the ictus the 
author places on personality; when has orthodox theology 
not stressed the personality of God and of man? Take an- 
other case: the author seems to think that the doctrine of 
the divine immanencee is a recent discovery of the ‘‘ progres- 


THE WAYS OF THE CRITICS 135 


sive’’ thinkers. Why, ever since the days of Christ and 
Paul orthodox theology has inculeated the doctrine of God’s 
active omnipresence. There never has been a time when 
evangelical thinkers held to the conception of a merely tran- 
scendent Deity. English Deism taught that doctrine—but 
English Deism was an infidel propaganda, and was abun- 
dantly refuted by the evangelical scholars of its day. Just 
for a test we dip into Heinrich Schmid’s ‘‘ Doctrinal The- 
ology of the Evangelical Lutheran Church,’’ and we find 
excellent discussions of the divine ubiquity by Gerhard 
(1582-1637) and Hollaz (1648-1713). * 

After this rather lengthy excursus, we must now proceed 
with our main theme. 

One of the strangest paradoxes in the advocacy of the 
more moderate critics is their conception of divine inspira- 
tion. They insist that they have the true idea of divine in- 
spiration and the correct evaluation of the Holy Bible, 
and that to them it is a much more precious book because 
of their critical conclusions; and yet, at the same time, they 
speak of the Bible as being made up of legends, myths and 
folklore, the conceptions of very primitive people, crude 
and mistaken in many ways, with actual contradictions here 
and there in the records. Is that an adequate and satisfac- 
tory conception of divine inspiration? Is it an inspiration 
that is worth while and that makes the Bible a reliable book 
in its religious teaching? Is it not too near the pantheistic 
idea of divine inspiration—that is, that everything that 
happens is inspired because everything is the evolution of 
God in the universe? According to this conception, even 
error and sin are to be attributed to the ultimate source of 


* Even Irenaeus taught the doctrine of divine immanence. (Vide 
Hitcheock’s translation, Vol. II, p. 113). Indeed, we can go back 
into church history even further than this father—to St. Ignatius, 
who taught that Christ as God is ubiquitous. Note: ‘‘ Nothing is 
hidden from the Lord, but even our secrets are brought nigh unto 
Him. Let us therefore do all things in the assurance that He 
dwells within us, that we may be His shrines, and He Himself 
dwell in us as God.’’ (Vide Srawley’s translation, p. 48.) 


136 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


being. Moral distinctions fade out to the vanishing point. 
‘‘Everything that is is right,’’ according to the pantheistic 
world-view. Are not the modern exponents of evolution too 
much given to this conception? Hence they can get divine 
inspiration out of the errors and sins of primitive people. 
We are willing to believe that God can ‘‘bring good out of 
evil and make the wrath of man to praise Him’’; but that 
is something totally different from a special divine inspira- 
tion on which men ean rely for salvation both in time and 
in eternity. 

A fatal difficulty with the radical criticism is that its 
logical outcome is rationalism pure and simple. If the 
Bible‘is partly inspired and partly uninspired, how are we 
to know which are the inspired portions and which are not?. 
Each man must decide for himself. That makes human ~ 
reason the final arbiter. What appeals to reason is ealled 
inspired; what is not according to reason is not inspired. 
If that is not rationalism, what is rationalism? Now, when 
we consider the achievements of unaided human reason his- 
torically, have we much encouragement to put confidence 
in its processes? The pagan nations of the earth have had 
reason to guide them all through their history in the absence 
of special revelation. What has been the result? Paganism 
in all its forms, from animism to pantheistic Hinduism and 
pessimistic and atheistic Buddhism. The ancient philos- 
ophers had reason to guide them, but even the best of them 
—Plato and Aristotle—thought that matter was eternal 
and that God was not the real Creator; while Democritus, 
Epicurus and Lucretius held to the materialistic world- 
view. How much agreement is there to-day among the 
apostles of pure reason? We have, among many other 
world-views, materialistic monism (Haeckel and Leuba), 
idealism, positivism, pantheism, theosophy, vitalism, ‘‘cre- 
ative evolution’? (whatever that means), and pluralism, 
not to mention a dozen more conflicting philosophies, Do 


THE WAYS OF THE CRITICS 137 


all these fundamental divergencies beget much confidence 
in mere human reason as a trustworthy guide? Yet the 
dissecting critics would make reason rather than the Bible 
the final court of appeal. Even among them there is much 
difference of opinion as to which parts of the Bible are in- 
spired and which are not inspired. On the ground of mere 
human judgment you never can arrive at a consensus among 
even a half dozen speculatists. No; the view of the critics 
respecting divine inspiration is illogical and inadequate. 
Let them spend half their time and effort in trying to recon- 
cile apparent discrepancies in the Bible, instead of exploit- 
ing them, and they will readily find that its teaching from 
beginning to end is a wonderful unity. 

Having pointed out ‘‘the ways of the critics’’ of the 
reducing school, namely, that they simply ignore the works 
of conservative scholars, or keep themselves uninformed re- 
garding them, it is a pleasure to turn to a Biblical investi- 
gator of a different ilk. We refer to the Rev. J. S. Griffiths 
and his book, ‘‘The Problem of Deuteronomy,’’ which we 
have read with much satisfaction. It was published in 1911, 
and won the Bishop of Jeune Memorial Prize for the best 
essay on ‘‘The Historical Truth and Divine Authority of 
the Book of Deuteronomy.’’ The fact that it won the prize 
In a contest with other competitors is worthy of note, and 
gives the reader confidence to begin with. We have a special 
purpose in calling attention to the date of its publication— 
1911. That was before the radical books previously men- 
tioned were issued—Smyth’s in 1914, Hopkins’ in 1918, 
Knudson’s in 1918, Lewis’s and MacIntosh’s in 1919. Do 
these works make any reference to Griffiths’ masterly treat- 
ment of Deuteronomy? They do not. They seem to be 
blissfully unconscious that so complete a refutation of their 
central position was ever given to the world. Now we main- 
tain that such treatment of opponents is both unfair and 
unethical. No man who writes merely on one side of the 


138 CONTENDING ‘FOR THE FAITH 


Biblical question has a right to speak of ‘‘the assured re- 
sults of scholarship,’’ when such a work as that of Mr. Grif- 
fith’s is accessible. 

And what is ‘‘the way’’ of this scholar? 'The precise 
opposite of the self-pluming critics. He takes nothing for 
granted. His aim is to prove every position by the sound- 
est rational process that he is capable of commanding. He 
makes no assertions that he does not try to establish by 
sound argument and by appeal to facts. Moreover, he does 
not ignore his opponents, but mentions many of them by 
name, quotes from their works, giving the titles and pages, 
and then demolishes their conclusions. To our mind, he 
does his work handsomely and thoroughly, not by dogmatic 
asseveration, but by sound argument. We believe we can do 
no better service than to indicate ‘‘the way’’ of this scholar~ 
by making a number of quotations from his work, showing 
how acutely he reasons. 

Our author holds that Deuteronomy is ‘‘the pivot of the 
Pentateuchal criticism’’ (p. 9), and quotes Graf, Dill- 
man, Wellhausen, Kittel, Westphal and Addis in support 
of the assertion. Note that, on the very first page of his 
discussion proper, he mentions a list of opposing liberal 
critics. How different his method from that of most of 
the liberals! On pages 11-13 he argues for the Mosaic au- 
thorship of Deuteronomy. This he does against the critics, 
who say that little or none of it is of Mosaic origin, and 
fix the date of its composition at about 620 B. C, Dr. Driver 
speaks of ‘‘an ancient traditional basis’’ and ‘‘an independ- - 
ent source, oral or written.’’ ‘‘As if oral tradition and 
tradition reduced to writing,’’ exclaims our author, ‘‘ were 
not two things as far apart as heaven and earth!’’ Dr. 
Driver suggests that the author of Deuteronomy may have 
‘‘derived his authority from more than one source; his 
secondary authority being sometimes popular tradition, 

sometimes, perhaps, his own imaginatiou,’’ On this point 


THE WAYS OF THE CRITICS 139 


our author reasons as follows: ‘‘These scholars seem to 
forget that the ‘value of tradition depends absolutely on the 
date at which it ceased to be oral by becoming fixed in writ- 
ing. If recorded at first hand, or nearly so, it may have all 
the authority of contemporaneous history. But as genera- 
tions come and go, and the events recede into the dim past, 
that which is handed down simply by word of mouth soon 
degenerates, and, parting with the reality of life, rapidly 
vanishes into the misty air of myth and fable, After the 
lapse of a few generations, oral tradition loses all pretense 
of simple truth’ ’’ (quoted from Sir W. Muir’s ‘* Authorship 
of Deuteronomy’’). ‘‘Meinhold (himself an ‘advanced’ 
critic) admits that if, on the grounds of literary criticism, 
Deuteronomy is to be dated at 620 B. C., no credibility can 
be attached to its historical statements. Besides, if the crit- 
ical theory is right, the statements made in Deut. 131, 5, 
29:1, 31:9, 24-27, must be false. And if the book is not to 
be believed when it distinctly affirms its Mosaie origin, on 
what grounds are we to accept its assertions on other 
points?’’ The first passages cited above are (verse 1): 
‘““These are the words which Moses spake unto all Israel 
beyond the Jordan, in the wilderness,’’ ete. ; (verse 5); 
“‘Beyond the Jordan, in the land of Moab, began Moses to 
declare this law, saying,’’ ete. If this is not reliable history, 
why should other parts of the book be regarded as reliable? 
That is Mr. Griffiths’ argument. Then he continues: 
‘‘Again, if Deuteronomy is, as the ‘advanced’ critics 
claim, ‘a protest of the prophetic party of the seventh 
century B. C. against the connection of unspiritual and 
heathen elements with the worship of Yahweh,’ issued in 
the name of Moses by ‘men who thought the time ripe for 
reform and had intelligently planned the way in which 
this was to be effected,’ it is not easy to accept it as a 
divinely authorized code of laws. . . . But Deuteronomy 
speaks with an accent of authority; it lays down certain 


140 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


laws which were to be strictly observed by the Jewish 
people; and the authority which it claims is the authority 
of Moses as the ‘man of God,’ divinely commissioned to 
legislate for Israel. It was on this ground—that it was the 
genuine word of Moses—that its authority was recognized 
and its enactments obeyed by Josiah and his subjects. But 
if the book itself and most of the laws it contains were un- 
known to Moses, its claim falls to the ground. It is as cer- 
tain as anything can be that, if King Josiah and his people 
had held the ‘critical’ view of the origin of Deuteronomy, 
they would never have accepted the book as divine.’’ 

And yet the moderate critics make the claim that Deuter- 
onomy was divinely inspired! What kind of divine inspira- 
tion would that be? It would be as futile for meine as 
the reasoning of the rationalists is for logic. 

We must pass over a large part of Mr. Griffiths’ book 
(though every page is worthy of careful perusal), and 
come to his analysis of the critical hypothesis that Deu- 
teronomy was imposed upon the people of Israel as a re- 
form document many centuries after Moses. We drop 
down on page 97 at Chapter V, ‘‘The Critical Theory: Its 
Difficulties.’’ Says our author: ‘‘If Deuteronomy is not 
Mosaic, when and by whom was it composed? Modern 
eritics cannot agree on an answer; and their lack of agree- 
ment on a point so vital undoubtedly tells heavily against 
the cause they represent. Two solutions are suggested.’’ In 
a footnote a number of other theories are named,. showing 
how much divergence of opinion there is among the ‘‘schol- 
arly’’ critics. By the way, if the ‘‘results’’ of ‘‘scholar- 
ship’’ are ‘‘assured,’’ one would think that the ‘‘scholars’’ 
ought to agree. But they don’t! Ewald, Bleek, W. R. 
Smith, Ryle, Driver, and others assign Deuteronomy to the 
reign of Manasseh; while Graf, Kuenen, Wellhausen, Cor- 
nill, Cheyne, and others assign it to the time of Josiah. 
In either case serious difficulties arise. The author deals 


THE WAYS OF THE CRITICS 141° 


more fully with the view that the book was imposed as a 
Mosaic document on the people of Israel in King Josiah’s 
reign. He contends thus: ‘‘To say that Deuteronomy was 
written in the time of Josiah, and that Hilkiah and the 
priests were parties to its production,’’ is ‘‘to cast a serious 
imputation on the moral character of these men. For the 
narrative expressly states that Hilkiah recognized the book 
as an ancient and authoritative law-book. He said, ‘I have 
found the book of the law’ (2 Kings 22:8), and in the 
Hebrew the definite article is emphatic. If Hilkiah was not 
deceived, he was himself guilty of gross deception; for, led 
by him, king and people accepted the book as an ancient 
code which had been disobeyed by their fathers (2 Kings 
22:13). Here quite a number of awkward questions im- 
mediately rise up to confound the critics. Why should the 
law of a central sanctuary be invented at a time when 
almost all the rival sanctuaries had gone down in the ruin 
of the Northern kingdom? Why should the priests be so 
eager to foist upon the nation a code which certainly did 
not promote their interests, and in one particular—the law 
of Deut. 18 :6f—was distinetly detrimental to them? And 
how did it come to pass that people, priests and prophets 
recognized as Mosaic, legislation which (according to criti- 
cism) was so opposed on many important points to all that 
up to that time had been regarded as such ? 

‘But, indeed,’’ our author continues, ‘‘that such a co- 
lossal fraud could have been carried out successfully is 
simply incredible. The extent of the alleged deception is 
truly marvelous. The whole nation with lamb-like inno- 
cence allowed themselves to be imposed upon. The priests 
of Jerusalem, to whom, as Kautzsch says, the book must 
have been intensely disagreeable; the priests of the high 
place whom it threw out of employment; the king whose 
ancestors it pilloried; and the people on whose cherished 
religious customs it poured the fiercest denunciations—all 


142 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


were completely deceived. Even Jeremiah, who exposed 
unhesitatingly the false prophecies of his own contempora- 
ries (Jer. 29/), publicly defended Deuteronomy as the legis- 
lation of Moses (Jer. 11). This amazing fraud was success- 
ful—so we are to believe—in spite of the hostility which 
must. have been provoked by a work which assailed so many 
interests, and in spite, too, of the searching inquiries to 
which such hostility would give rise. According to criti- 
cism, the book contains many important modifications and 
contradictions of the laws previously accepted as Mosaic— 
discrepancies clearly evident to eminent scholars of the 
nineteenth and twentieth centuries; yet these astonishing 
Jews of the seventh century B. C., though they disliked it, 
and after a brief period of alarm disregarded it, never 
questioned its genuineness. Many persons must have been 
concerned in its production, but no hint of the secret ever 
leaked out. Even in the time of apostasy which followed 
Josiah’s reformation, neither kings, priests, nor people ever 
tried to justify their relapse by impugning the Mosaie 
authority of the book. Marvelous indeed was this deception, 
so carefully carried out, so perfect in every detail. But far 
more wonderful are those lynx-eyed critics who, after the 
lapse of twenty-four centuries, are able to expose this in- . 
genious fraud which the Jews of Josiah’s age—though they 
had every opportunity and incentive to do so—could not 
pentrate!’’ 

Then the author goes on to show that if the critics are 
right, ‘‘Deuteronomy ‘is a deliberate falsehood. It is not 
an adequate reply to say airily that, when the author as- 
sumed the Mosaic mask, he only ‘made use of an acknowl- 
edged device,’ and that men in those days ‘perpetrated 
such fictions without a qualm of conscience’ (Kuenen).”’ 

Here we would like to inject the question, On this hy- 
pothesis what becomes of the doctrine of divine inspiration ? 
Even if men in those palmy days would have perpetrated 


THE WAYS OF THE CRITICS 143 


““such fictions without a qualm of conscience,’’ would the 
Holy Spirit have used the same dishonest methods? We 
have always thought that, according to the Holy Scriptures, 
the Holy Spirit was ‘‘the Spirit of truth.’’ The critical 
conception of divine inspiration would surely be amusing 
if the results to the evangelical faith were not so calamitous. 

But our alert author challenges Kuenen’s assertion about 
such fictions being common in the days of Josiah (pp. 
101, 102). ‘‘It is necessary,’’ he declares, ‘‘that at least 
one undoubted instance should be quoted in evidence. But 
this the critics invariably omit to do. If fictions of this 
kind were common in the seventh century B. C., surely it 
would be possible to mention one instance. If none can be 
cited, how do the critics know that the practice was com- 
mon? ... But there is not a shred of evidence that such 
‘literary practices’ were common or considered justifiable 
in the age of Josiah or at any earlier time. Galen, a very 
competent witness, assures us that it was not till the age of 
the Ptolemies, when kings were rivaling each other in col- 
lecting libraries, that the ‘roguery’ (so this unenlightened 
heathen regarded it) of forging writings and titles began. 
It is evident from this that the practice was not looked upon 
as lawful even among the heathen. How then can we recon- 
cile such ‘roguery’ with the lofty religious and moral prin- 
ciples enunciated so fervently in the book of Deuteronomy ? 
The so-called discrepancies between Deuteronomy and the 
other codes, which the critics parade with such pomp, fade 
into nothingness when compared with the astounding con- 
tradiction between the spiritual tone of the book and the 
fraud which gave it birth. ‘Do men gather grapes of thorns 
or figs of thistles?’ ’’ 

In the next few pages our author vividly portrays the 
remarkable sagacity of the author of Deuteronomy if he 
wrote the book in the times of Josiah. What a complete 
disguise the work was! He lived in the seventh century, 


144 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


and yet transported himself so perfectly into the times 
and circumstances of Moses eight centuries prior as to give 
the whole record the air of historical verisimilitude, never 
committing an anachronism. ‘‘When we reflect,’’ says Mr. 
Griffiths, ‘‘how difficult it is even to-day to reproduce with 
exactness the scenery and circumstances of the past, we 
must recognize in this nameless forger an antiquarian of 
the first rank. Further, he not only adopts with conspicu- 
ous success the Mosaic garb; he embodies the Mosaic spirit. 
He speaks in the tone and from the standpoint of the great 
leader. He has caught and reproduced the emotions and 
desires, the confident optimism and happy hopefulness of 
Moses on the eve of the immigration. It is one of the great- 
est triumphs of the human imagination. So completely has 
he transported himself into the Mosaic age that he is abso- 
lutely unconscious of his own environment. The interven- 
ing centuries, with all their doleful history of backsliding 
and persecution, of disaster and defeat, are utterly ig- 
nored.’’ There is more argument here to the same effect. 
“He proclaims a war of extermination against the Canaan- 
ities, as though they had not been destroyed long before! . . 
In a word, he never even for a moment drops the Mosaic 
mask.’’ He certainly was a past master of ‘‘camouflage.”’ 
That such a genius could have existed in the seventh century 
B. C., and yet leave no trace of his identity, is beyond ra- 
tional belief. 

And think of it! This man of such commanding intel- 
lectual gifts and such ‘‘remarkable insight and lofty ethical 
ideals,’? in order to bring about a reform ‘‘perpetrates a 
fraud’’ upon his contemporaries—a fraud, too, ‘‘which he 
himself denounces in the severest terms!’’ Then the author 
cites Deut. 18:20: ‘‘But the prophet who shall speak a 
word presumptuously in my name, which I have not com-- 
manded him to speak, or who shall speak in the name of 
other gods, that same prophet shall die.’? If Hilkiah or 


THE WAYS OF THE CRITICS 145 


any one else in Josiah’s day wrote that verse, and falsely 
attributed it to Moses, he was a hypocrite of the deepest 
dye. Is it any wonder that evangelical scholars contend 
that the critical position is destructive of the whole doc- 
trine of divine inspiration and authority? 

After thus dissecting the hypothesis of the dissecting 
Biblical critics, Mr. Griffiths concludes this part of his 
argument with these words, with which we are constrained 
to agree: ‘We may fairly claim that, whether we consider 
the literary influence of Deuteronomy, its relations to the 
other Pentateuchal books, the character of its contents, or 
the problem of its origin and authorship, on every point the 
critical theory breaks down completely. Our examination 
of its claims in the light of the available evidence has only 
served to demonstrate their falsity, and to show that no date 
and no authorship fit the book of Deuteronomy save those 
which it distinctly claims for itself.’’ 

There is much more fine argument in this book, but we 
need not continue our quotations. Three things are evident 
from the preceding presentation. The first is that the 
rationalists are the poorest reasoners in the world and the 
most consummate dogmatists and asseverators. The second 
is that their theories, if proven true, would undermine any 
view of divine inspiration that would be worthy of con- 
fidence. The third is that there is a marked contrast be- 
tween the ‘‘ways’’ of the radical critics and those of the 
conservative scholars; the former mostly ignore the works 
of their opponents, and simply repeat over and over again 
their assumptions without argument and with constant ar- 
rogation to themselves of having attained ‘‘assured re- 
sults’’; while the latter—the conservatives—not only men- 
tion their opponents, cite their works, quote from them, 
giving title and page, but also enter into an elaborate 
argumentative process to prove their antagonists wrong and 
their own positions correct. Of the sharply contrasted 


146 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


‘‘ways of the eritics,’’ we greatly prefer those of the con- 
servatives as being far the more rational, and, we are 
constrained to add, far more ethical. 


CHAPTER VIII 
THE BOOK OF JONAH 
Is It Fact or Fiction, History or Parable? 


A RECENT discussion of the book of Jonah in a minis- 
terial association has set the subject vividly before our 
mind. The aforesaid discussion has made it plain that 
the methods and results of the Higher Criticism, both con- 
servative and radical, have become widespread among min- 
isters. The meeting referred to consisted of the ministers 
of two inland towns of not more than 6000-7000 inhabi- 
tants each. Indeed, one of the ministers who advocated 
strongly and intelligently the parabolic character of the 
book, and quoted from Canon Driver and other Higher 
Critics of that school, lived in the country, and was the 
pastor of two or three rural congregations. 

It is interesting to note how the association was divided 
‘on the question at issue. The two Lutheran pastors pres- 
ent stood firmly for the historical character of the book; 
in fact, were the most uncompromising advocates of that 
view. The Presbyterian pastor seemed also to accept that 
position, but contented himself with a cordial eulogy on 
the Lutheran minister who had read the paper that started 
the discussion. The two German Reformed ministers ar- 
gued at considerable length that the book was an inspired 
work of fiction designed to teach a moral lesson. The 
Moravian and Disciple pastors accepted the traditional 
view, declaring that the miracles recited in the book had 

147 


148 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


never disturbed their faith. One Methodist minister, not 
a pastor, stood without equivocation with the promoters 
of the fiction view. Another Methodist pastor seemed to 
be somewhat undecided, while a third averred that he did 
not see how any one could accept any view but the tra- 
ditional one without compromising the distinct teaching 
of Christ. We detail these facts simply to show how the 
Higher Criticism has permeated the ranks of the ministry 
throughout the country, and is by no means confined to 
the great academic centers. 

In entire fairness to those who differed from our view 
we should say that the more radical men were not irrev- 
erent. Rather, they contended that they were more rev- 
erent than the rest of us, because they did not make God 
do things that were grotesque and absurd. They also 
maintained that the book was inspired by the Holy Spirit, 
who moved upon the writer to compose the story for the 
purpose of teaching the Jewish people a much-needed les- 
son, just as He inspired the vision of Peter on the house- 
top in Joppa. When the meeting was adjourned, we said 
to one of the Reformed pastors that, if the book of Jonah 
was a parable, it was a very poorly constructed one, not 
worthy of a place in the mythical and allegorical literature 
of the world. What do you suppose was his reply? ‘‘That 
remark,’’ he declared, ‘‘is a reflection on the work of the 
Holy Spirit, who inspired the allegory. It is an irrever- 
ent remark.’’ We report this because we desire to be en- 
tirely fair and properly to represent the temper, as well 
as the position, of our opponents. 

And yet, to be fully just, we must report something 
more. In the course of the promiscuous discussion we 
asked the more radical critics why they displayed so strong 
a disposition to prove the book an allegory or parable and 
were not willing to accept it as history. Their reply in 
substance was this: ‘‘The book contains such grotesque 


THE BOOK OF JONAH 149 


elements and such inconsistent miracles that we cannot 
credit its historicity.’’? This remark, after all, disclosed 
the secret and motive of their advocacy—it was the spirit 
of rationalism; whether conscious or unconscious, it is not 
our province to say. However, the spirit displayed by the 
brethren of the more radical school convinces us that it 
would be wrong to impute unworthy motives to them, or 
accuse them of irreverence, while their arguments lead us 
to have respect for their intelligence. Therefore, the task 
we have assigned ourself in this chapter will be simplified 
thus far—that we may confine our observations simply and 
solely to the evidence and proof, and need employ no in- 
vectives in dealing with our opponents. Let us begin with 
giving them credit for sincerity and intelligence. The only 
question before us, therefore, is this: Is the book of Jonah 
history or fiction? 

In the first place, what is the precise position of the 
supporters of the fiction theory? It is this: The book 
was intended by its author as a story with a moral lesson 
for the Jews. Christ himself made up stories for didactic 
purposes—the story of the Prodigal Son, the parable of 
the Rich Man and Lazarus. Stories of the kind are not 
unknown in the writings of some of the other prophets, 
such as Isaiah’s song of the vineyard of his beloved (Isa. 
5:1-7). Now, according to the critics, the Jewish people 
were narrow and sectional in their views, believing that 
God’s mercy was confined to them as a nation, while all 
the heathen nations round about were under God’s ban, 
designed only for destruction. They—the Jews—had no 
missionary and evangelistic spirit, no large vision of God’s 
redemptive purpose. Even if God should want to show 
mercy to the Gentiles, the bigoted Jews would try to frus- 
trate His plans. Therefore the Holy Spirit saw that they 
needed an allegory to show them their mistake, and to 


150 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


teach them that the mercy of God was of wider horizon 
than they conceived. 

Now, in the reputed allegory Jonah represents the Jew- 
ish nation, which is commanded to preach the mercy of 
God to the surrounding nations. But just as Jonah tried 
to flee from the command of Jehovah, so the Jewish na- 
tion tried to evade its duty to the perishing Gentiles, As 
Jonah was overtaken by a violent storm, so the people of 
Israel suffered dire affliction from God’s hand, especially 
through the persecutions of their enemies. Then, as Jonah 
was swallowed up by a great fish, so the Israelitish nation 
was swallowed up by the Babylonian captivity. The big 
fish disgorged Jonah; so Babylon returned the Jews from 
their exile. Still, Jonah was not pleased; neither were 
the Jews cured of their hatred of the Gentile nations, but 
rebelled against God’s disposition to show mercy to them. 
Jonah’s peevishness about the perishing of the gourd mir- 
rors the smallness of the Jews in their conceptions of the 
plans and grace of God. The foregoing is the applica- 
tion of the so-called allegory of Jonah as set forth by 
George Adam Smith in ‘‘The Expositor’s Bible,’’ and Dr. 
Smith is one of the most reverent of the critics who lean 
toward the radical side, and also contends for the divine 
inspiration of the book. 

The critics think that the key to the interpretation of 
the book is found in what Jeremiah says about the chil- 
dren of Israel in their exile in Babylon (Jer. 51:34, 44 
and 45). ‘“‘Nebuchadrezzar, the king of Babylon, hath 
devoured me, he hath crushed me, he hath made me an 
empty vessel, he hath, like a monster, swallowed me up, 
he hath filled his maw with my delicacies; he hath cast me 
out.’’ Then Jehovah replies: ‘‘And I will execute judg- 
ment upon Bel in Babylon, and I will bring forth out of 
his mouth that which he hath swallowed up... . My peo- 
ple go ye out of the midst of her, and save yourselves 


THE BOOK OF JONAH 151 


every man from the fierce anger of Jehovah.’’ It is to 
be noted here, in passing, that George Adam Smith does 
not quote the intervening verses that lend no color to his 
theory, but picks out from a large number of similes such 
passages only as fit into the story of Jonah and the big 
fish. We feel like adding that this passage, thus garbled, 
does not strike us as a very good ‘‘key’’ to either a para- 
ble or a history. 

In the next place, what are the critic’s objections to the 
historicity of the book of Jonah? One of the most serious 
is the story of the Big Fish—which they write in capitals. 
Such a miracle, they admit, is not impossible with God, if 
miracles are granted at all, but it is so grotesque, so child- 
ish, that it has ever lent itself to ridicule. They cannot 
conceive that God would perform a wonder like that. But 
more serious still is the wholesale repentance of the Nine- 
vites under the preaching of a stranger like Jonah. Where 
is there any record elsewhere of a great city yielding so 
quickly to the proclamation of the truth? In actual life 
we know of no such event, for no matter how great the 
revival in a city, there are always some who obstinately 
refuse to repent. Moreover, the critics tell us that there 
are no historical evidences of Nineveh’s conversion, but 
after this she was denounced by the prophets as a wicked 
city, and at last met her doom through the punitive jus- 
tice that overtook all the wicked ancient cities. Nor does 
the story of Jonah’s gourd, which sprang up in a night 
and perished so quickly, impress the critics as a veritable 
incident, but rather as a pretty fiction. Another objec- 
tion urged by the critics is that the book is placed among 
the minor prophets in the Old Testament, whereas, if it 
is literal history, it does not belong there, but should be 
placed among the historical books. 

Before going further, it would seem to be advisable to 
deal with these objections and see whether they are valid. 


152 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


Take the first difficulty suggested—that the story of the 
Big Fish swallowing Jonah is grotesque and undignified. 
If that is so, would not the same objection hold against the 
composition as a work of fiction? How could an inspired 
writer—yea, rather, how could the Holy Spirit—hope to 
make an allegory effective by introducing an event that 
would strike the reader as absurd? Could He not foresee 
that many people would laugh at such a story, and find 
fault with it as a work of art? Surely, surely if the story 
is too unnatural to be believed as history, it is also too 
unnatural to be effective as allegory. Compare the nat- 
uralness, the simplicity, the wonderful art of the parables 
of our Lord with this strange parable of Jonah—if it is a 
parable. You can easily imagine the Jews casting ridicule 
at a story-writer who would suppose that so bizarre a tale, 
which they knew to be pure invention, would bring them 
to their senses. ° 

That the people of Nineveh should be so readily won to 
repentance, and in so wholesale a style, strikes the critics 
as extremely improbable. But what do discerning read- 
ers think of a piece of fiction that seriously introduces the 
improbable element? They condemn it at once. Fancy 
a hardsheaded Jew perusing this story, which he recognizes 
as a work of fiction directed at his own prejudices, and 
what would be his verdict? That the writer spoils the 
whole effect of his novel by overdoing it, by attributing 
a result to Jonah’s preaching that everybody knows to be 
fantastic. A poor artist this story-writer. You and I 
know of Sunday-school stories that not only fail of their 
effect, but actually do harm by being overdrawn and 
““goody-goody.”’ 

Thus we feel like repeating our assertion that, if the 
book of Jonah is an allegory, it is a very lamely con- 
structed one, lacking wholly in that winsome art and art- 
lessness that characterize all the other parabolic portions 


THE BOOK OF JONAH 153 


of the Bible. Contrast it with the fine art and effective 
teaching of Christ’s parables of the Good Samaritan and 
the Prodigal Son. 

Let us now look at the positive and constructive argu- 
ment for the historical character of the work. First, all 
the moral and spiritual lessons of the book are taught just 
as clearly, if the incidents recited are regarded as actual 
occurrences, as if they are looked upon as fictitious, and 
we cannot help thinking much more effectively. Jonah’s 
attempt to run away from the Lord—how many other men 
have tried to do the same thing? If God employed so ex- 
traordinary a method of arresting Jonah and disposing him 
to carry the divine message to Nineveh, what a lesson for 
all men, whether Jews or Gentiles, that when God lays His 
hand upon a man, he cannot escape from His appointed 
work! Many a man, like Jonah, has declared that he 
would not preach the gospel, but God has brought him to 
his Nineveh by ways he little dreamed of. And Jonah’s 
unwillingness to carry the gospel of mercy to a heathen 
city, because he thought its people were outside of the 
covenant of grace—what a picture of Jewish bigotry and 
selfishness—and of Greek, Teutonic, English and American 
narrowness as well! When the people of Nineveh repented 
and God relented and forgave them, the selfish Jews were 
taught two lessons that they greatly needéd to learn; first, 
that heathen people were susceptible of repentance and 
salvation; second, that God’s mercy was not confined to 
Jewish national life, but was as wide as the land and the 
sea. What a rebuke to sectionalism and bigotry wherever 
found! And how much more effective the lesson if the 
occurrence was real than if it was only a pretty piece of 
idealistic fiction! Even Jonah’s littleness in feeling angry 
because his reputation as a prophet was injured holds 
the mirror up to some portions of human nature as it has 
always been known; not only to Jewish Pharisaism, but 


154 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


also to many a modern would-be prophet who thinks more 
of himself than of his message or the salvation of the 
people. 

How powerfully all these lessons are impressed if the 
story is history! How much they are weakened if the story 
existed only in the fertile fancy of a romancer! Nor is that 
all. The lessons are so important, so much needed by the 
Jews and the whole human family, that it was worth while 
for God to perform the miracles recorded to impress those 
lessons upon the minds of the people of all times. And the 
more extraordinary the miracles performed, the more im- 
portant the lessons God sought to convey. If God did 
nothing more than inspire a prophet to write a fictitious 
story, the lessons could not be so extremely vital. How- 
ever, if God arrested and saved Jonah in the wonderful 
way described in the book, He must have regarded those 
lessons as of superlative value. When God places the stamp 
of the miraculous upon a doctrine, we know it must be 
heeded. 

It will be granted by all that there must always be a 
sufficient ethical motive for the performance of a miracle. 
Can such a motive be found for the miracle of saving the 
prophet by means of a mammoth fish? We answer in the 
affirmative. The people of Nineveh were wicked, doomed 
to destruction, unless help came to them from some extra- 
ordinary source. If God saw that they would repent 
through the preaching of one of his prophets, surely no 
means for bringing about such a result would be too great 
or too extraordinary. God sent His only begotten Son 
into the world. Was the motive sufficient? Looking upon 
the lost condition of the world and remembering the value 
of a single immortal soul, it was. The explanation of the 
miracle of Jonah’s rescue lies in God’s estimate of the 
value of the souls in Nineveh. 

This brings us face to face with the narrative of Jonah 


THE BOOK OF JONAH 155 


and the Big Fish. It will not do to evade the issue by de- 
nouncing the doubter as a willful unbeliever and telling 
him that his salvation depends upon his accepting the story 
as history. That is not our way of dealing with the man 
who has intellectual difficulties, and it is not an effective 
way, either, but rather repels the skeptic. So let us deal 
with the miracle as thoroughly as we may. 

Here the view of the allegorizing critics falls to pieces. 
As has been seen, they declare that the incident of the fish 
swallowing the prophet finds its analogy in the swallowing 
up of the people of Israel in the Babylonian captivity. 
However, God did not prepare the great fish to punish 
Jonah, but rather as the means of his deliverance from the 
sea, for the prophet was far from land; whereas the cap- 
tivity of Israel in Babylonia was not intended for their 
deliverance but for their punishment and discipline. The 
comparison therefore is not well taken, and the allegory 
loses its force for lack of aptitude. 

That the miracle of the great fish is the gravamen of the 
critics is evident from their manner of treating it. George 
Adams Smith places this rather scornful quotation at the 
head of his commentary on Jonah, and does not even give 
the name of its author: ‘‘And this is the tragedy of the 
book of Jonah, that a book which is made the means of 
one of the most sublime revelations of truth in the Old 
Testament should be known to most only for its connection 
with a whale.’’ In the main part of his commentary 
he has this to say, after stating the allegorical interpreta- 
tion of the event: ‘‘Such a solution of the problem has one 
great advantage. It relieves us of the grotesqueness which 
attaches to the literal conception of the story, and of the 
necessity of those painful efforts for accounting for a 
miracle which have distorted the common-sense and even 
the orthodoxy of so many commentators of the book. We 
are dealing, let us remember, with poetry—a poetry in- 


156 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


spired by one of the most sublime truths of the Old Testa- 
ment, but whose figures are drawn from the legends and 
myths of the people to whom it is addressed. To treat 
this as prose is not only to sin against the common-sense 
which God has given us, but against the simple and obvious 
intention of the author. It is blindness both to reason and 
to Scripture.’? Then he adds the following amusing foot- 
note: ‘‘It is very interesting to notice how many com- 
mentators (e. g., Pusey, and the English edition of Lange), 
who take the story in tts individual meaning, and therefore 
as miraculous, immediately try to minimize the miracle by 
quoting stories of great fishes which have swallowed men, 
and even men in armor, whole, and in one case at least, 
have vomited them up alive!’’ 

Thus we see that it is, after all, the grievance against the 
fish swallowing Jonah that lies at the root of all skepticism 
and rationalism relative to this book. Is this such an un- 
believable miracle as the skeptical world would have us 
think? We have often wondered why this miracle has been 
selected as the special object of ridicule and attack. Surely 
it is not so wonderful as many other miracles of the Bible. 
The saving of Noah in the great deluge was a much more 
stupendous miracle. The parting of the waters of the 
Jordan at the time of high water would require much more 
physical power. The halting of the sun and moon by 
Joshua is much more difficult to explain. The falling of 
the walls of Jericho at the blast of the trumpets is fully 
as mysterious. Christ’s miracles of the loaves and fishes, 
walking on the water, stilling the tempest, raising the dead, 
and finally Himself rising from the grave—all of them 
have elements that are just as much beyond the range of 
common human experience as is this deliverance of the 
prophet by and from the great fish of the Mediterranean. 
And God’s creation of the universe transcends all our con- 
ceptions of power and wisdom. If we can believe in miracles 


THE BOOK OF JONAH 157 


at all, we can readily accept this one. The strange thing 
about many of the critics is that they say they accept many 
of the other miracles of the Bible, especially that of the 
resurrection of Christ, and yet they pounce upon this 
Jonah-fish miracle as if it were the one offender in the list 
of wonders. That, to say the least, does not seem to be 
consistent. 

Now, we shall not proceed to ‘‘minimize’’ the miracle. 
If the Scripture taught that the great fish was a whale, we 
could still believe the story, for the God who made a whale 
could manage temporarily to enlarge its throat so as to ad- 
mit the body of a man; He could do that just as easily as 
He could afterward keep the man alive amid the digestive 
organs of the monster. But the Bible does not teach that 
the great fish was a whale, in the technical sense, and if it 
does not teach that, why should any one be called upon to 
believe it or defend it? In King James’s translation the 
word ketos is translated ‘‘whale,’’ but the Greek word sim- 
ply means a sea-monster, and that name will apply to the 
mammoth sharks of the Mediterranean Sea. And it is a 
matter of sober record that these leviathans of the deep are 
capable of swallowing a man whole. The great commenta- 
tor, Dr. Keil, was as scholarly and sober as he was con- 
servative, and he says in his work on Jonah (which, by the 
way, 18 invaluable) : 

“The great fish (LXX. ketos, ef. Matt. XII. 40), which 
is not more precisely defined, was not a whale, because this 
is extremely rare in the Mediterranean, and has too small a 
throat to swallow a man, but a large shark or sea-dog, cams 
carchalrias, or squalus carcharias L., which is very common 
in the Mediterranean, and has so large a throat that it can 
swallow a living man whole. The miracle consisted, there- 
fore, not so much in the fact that Jonah was swallowed 
alive, as in the fact that he was kept alive three days in 
the shark’s belly and then vomited unhurt upon the land.”’ 


‘ 


158 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


In a footnote he adds these observations: ‘‘The squalus 
carcharias L., the true shark ... reaches, according to 
Cuvier, the length of 25 feet, and, according to Oken, 
the length of four fathoms, and has about four hun- 
dred lance-shaped teeth in its jaw, arranged in six rows, 
which the animal can either elevate or depress, as they are 
simply fixed in cells in the skin. It is common in the Medi- 
terranean, where it generally remains in deep water, and 
is very voracious, swallowing everything that comes in its 
way—plaice, seals, tunney-fish, with which it sometimes 
gets into the fishermen’s net on the coast of Sardinia, and 
is caught. As many as a dozen undigested tunny-fish have 
been found in a shark weighing three or four hundred- 
weight; in one a whole horse was found, and its weight 
was estimated at fifteen hundredweight. Rondolet (Oken, 
p. 58) says that he saw one on the western coast of France 
through whose throat a fat man could very easily have 
passed. Oken also mentions a fact... namely, that in 
the year 1758 a sailor fell overboard from a frigate, in 
very stormy weather, in the Mediterranean Sea, and was 
immediately taken into the jaws of a sea-dog (carcharias), 
and disappeared. The captain, however, ordered a gun, 
which was standing on the deck, to be discharged at the 
shark, and the cannon-ball struck it, so that it vomited up 
again the sailor that it had swallowed, who was then taken 
up alive, and very little hurt, into the boat that had been 
lowered for his rescue.”’ 

Our next quotation is from Dr. Geike: ‘‘Captain King, 
in his ‘Survey of Australia,’ says that he caught one (a 
shark) which could have swallowed a man with the greatest 
ease. Blumenbach even states that a whole horse has been 
found in this kind of a shark; and Basil Hall tells us that 
he discovered in one, besides other things, the whole skin 
of a buffalo, which had been thrown overboard a short time 
before. Brusch says that the whole body of a man in armor 


THE BOOK OF JONAH 159 


has been taken from the stomach of such a shark. It is 
not uncommon in the Mediterranean, and is met with also 
in the Arabian Gulf and the Indian Ocean.’’ 

Well are we aware that such explanations sometimes 
bring a condescending smile to the lips of two classes of 
persons: First, orthodox believers who do not care to 
think and investigate, but prefer to swallow everything in 
a blind sort of way; second, the rationalizing critics who 
accuse us of holding to a miracle and then trying to reduce 
it to rational limits. Our reply is, the rationalists have 
proclaimed from the house-top that they cannot accept this 
miracle because it is so extraordinary and grotesque. We 
have shown by the facts cited that there exist in the Medi- 
terranean Sea monsters which can easily swallow a man 
entire, and that therefore the miracle is not so fantastic 
as these men have thought. To orthodox believers who 
swallow every miracle as easily as the shark swallowed 
Jonah, and from their exalted Pisgah of credulity declare 
that they want no explanations, we have simply to say that 
they miss much pleasure in not trying to discover how 
beautifully God always in every miracle superimposed the 
supernatural upon the natural, connecting the two in the 
most vital way, thus showing that the natural is His handi- 
work as well as the supernatural, and that He will always 
honor the former as far as it will go in carrying out His 
heavenly plans. In feeding the multitude He used the 
loaves and fishes. In the miracle at Cana He made use of 
the water in the jars. In parting the waters of the Red 
Sea He used a strong east wind. In preserving Jonah He 
used a natural fish. This is a domain of thought worth 
investigating, and makes some of us respect the natural 
all the more, while it does not in the least diminish our 
faith in the supernatural. There is a sacred and heavenly 
economy in all miracles. 

After the foregoing was written, we made an interesting 


160 CONTENDIN:: FOR THE FAITH 


discovery, proving how the science of the day is coming 
to the fore to establish the historical verity of the Bible 
narratives. Frank Bullen is a modern writer of sea voyages 
and stories, and, so far as we know, his knowledge of 
marine life has never been called in question. In his 
‘‘Cruise of the Cachalot’’ he says that he saw masses of 
cuttle-fish ‘‘as thick as a stout man’s body, and with six 
or seven sucking discs, or acetabula, on it,’’ all of which 
had. been ejected from the stomach of a dying whale, and 
that, of course, through the throat. In one case he declares 
that “‘the ejected food was in masses of enormous size, 
larger than any we have yet seen on the voyage, some of 
them being estimated of the size of a hatch- house, namely, 
eight feet by six feet into six feet.’? That would be a good 
deal larger than the body of a prophet. It seems that the 
old scientific dicta as to the small size of the whale’s throat 
applied only to the esophagus of the Greenland whale, 
whereas navigators and whalers have since discovered that 
there are other species of whales having enormous gullets. 
It would seem, therefore, that even the whale story need not 
be given up on the ground of its being scientifically absurd. 

But the preservation of Jonah in the shark’s stomach 
was the real miracle, and a miracle it must have been 
in deed and in truth. Still, it was not more marvelous 
than the preservation of Daniel in the lion’s den, or the 
three Hebrew children in the fiery furnace. Then why 
Should any believer in miracles stumble over it? The lead- 
ing question is not, Was such a marvel possible? but, 
Was it justifiable, germain to the exigency, needful for 
the great object to be accomplished? We think it was. 
Jonah was out in the midst of a boiling, tempestuous sea, 
far from land. He was cast into the tumultuous waters. 
He was trying to flee from a work that God had determined 
to do and that was worthy of divine effort—the saving of 
@ great city. God had given Jonah a degree of liberty, as 


THE BOOK OF JONAH 161 


He does every man, prophet or layman, and in the exercise 
of his freedom Jonah had gone out upon the sea, meaning 
to escape to Tarshish. Now, if Jonah, flung out into the 
water, is to be saved to execute the great mission assigned 
him, a miracle must be performed. What kind of a miracle 
shall it be? God might have simply stilled the storm before 
so dire a calamity came. Then Jonah and his companions 
would have gone on their way to Tarshish, and God’s 
purpose would have been balked. God might have given 
Jonah such superhuman strength as to enable him to swim 
through league upon league of briny water to the land; 
but that would have been as great a miracle as to allow 
a fish, which was a natural swimmer, to carry him. But | 
some one says, ‘“‘God might have sent along a ship that 
would have speedily picked up the prophet and borne him 
back to the coast of Pheenicia.’’ Then Jonah would perhaps 
have failed to be impressed with God’s earnest purpose 
and wondrous power, and would have made another at- 
tempt to run away from his divine call. It sometimes 
requires an extraordinary experience to bring men to their 
Senses, especially if they are men of stubborn determination. 
Take the miracle as it is recited in the book, and it might 
as well have occurred as any other miracle, for all miracles 
are alike to a God of infinite power, and it taught the 
renegade prophet the lesson he needed, and taught it most 
effectively. 

It was not only the most natural miracle, so to speak, 
that could have been enacted under the circumstances, but 
it was justified by the need of a preacher of punitive 
Justice in sinful Nineveh, where God had determined either 
to destroy or to save the people. The critics are greatly 
troubled because Jonah’s preaching was so exceptionally 
effective. Why, they say, no other case of a whole city’s 
repenting after a few days’ preaching is on record! Isn’t 
that an indication of myth or fiction? No, indeed! It is 


162 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


rather a proof of the effectiveness of the miracle God had 
wrought. A prophet so wonderfully delivered would preach 
with an unction and power that could not be resisted. Yes, 
Jonah had attended a most proficient divinity school down 
there in the shark’s stomach, He had been kept there long 
enough, too, to study theology and reflect on the doctrine 
of God’s sovereignty. That is the reason the shark did not 
earry him at once to the shore. God wanted him to have 
time to think. Potentially God sometimes treats his proph- 
ets in the same way to-day. 

Possibly we are ready now to consider the susceptibility 
of the Ninevites to the preaching of Jonah. The critics 
. speak about the ‘‘conversion’’ of the whole city. Let it be 
understood that the Scriptures never speak about their 
‘‘econversion,’’ but simply about their repentance. By 
importing the word ‘‘conversion’’ into the event, and then 
arguing on that assumption, the critics suppose they make 
out their case’ against the historicity of the book, for they 
think there is no evidence that Nineveh had really turned 
to God; and the fact that it was afterward doomed to 
destruction on account of its wickedness seems to lend some 
eolor to their view. However, it is not to be assumed that, 
when the people of Nineveh repented under the preaching 
of Jonah, they were all thoroughly regenerated and became 
ideal worshipers of God. In many eases the repentance 
was formal, in others the result of sudden and violent fear 
of punishment. Perhaps the reformation was rather evan- 
escent. If it was, it, is not to be wondered at, for how 
often Israel turned to God under special punishment or 
kingly dominance, calling upon God for mercy, which he 
always displayed toward them; then soon went back to 
their idols and ungodliness. If with all God’s care of them 
for centuries they were so wavering, can we wonder that 
the reformation of the heathen city of Nineveh was not 
permanent? The object of the book, as Dr. Keil has keenly 


THE BOOK OF JONAH 163 


pointed out, was to prove to Jonah and his fellow-Hebrews 
that God would be merciful to pagan penitents and that 
such people were capable of repentance and salvation; and 
when they repented, though their sorrow for sin may not 
have been deep or lasting, God for the time being stayed the 
hand of doom that was held over them. Thus we do not 
See that the temporary nature of the reformation in Nin- 
eveh is much of a stumbling-block to faith in the literal 
history of the book. The lesson of God’s paternal love for 
all nations, and not merely the chosen people, would still 
be powerfully impressed upon the minds of the Jews. 
From many sources come confirmations of the historical 
nature of the narrative portions of God’s Word, including 
the book of Jonah. Here is something just at hand. The 
Rev. John A. Ainslee was for years stationed as a mis- 
sionary at Mosul, near the site of the ancient city of 
Nineveh. In a letter written from Chatfield, Minn., to the 
editor of ‘‘The Bible Student and Teacher,’’* he says: 
‘“There are several large Christian villages within 
twenty or twenty-five miles of old Nineveh. I worked more 
or less in many of these during the ten years that I was 
stationed at Mosul. One of these villages is Tel Kaif, 
having about 5,000 inhabitants. I found that in this vil- 
lage they keep a fast every year, a fast of three days, which 
is, according to their own story, a repetition of the fast 
ordered by the king of Nineveh in Jonah’s time. It has 
been kept through all these generations, and is still kept 
in that village according to the ‘custom’ which means so 
much to an Oriental. The fast was ordered by a heathen 
king, and those who now keep it are nominally Christians. 
I do not know why they or their fathers should keep it, 
unless it may be that they are descended from those old 
Ninevites. Explorations may yet settle this fact. I ean 


* This magazine is now known as The Bible Champion, and is con- 
ducting a vigorous crusade in favor of the integrity of the Bible. 


164 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


only report the fact, which can be tested by any one who 
cares to go to that village, that the old fast of the Ninevites 
is still observed.’’ 

There is no need, we think, of attempting to explain or 
justify the miracle of the plant that grew up in a night and 
perished so soon, for if the greater wonders of the narrative 
ean be accepted, this one will cause no difficulty. 

Let us now note the position of this book in the sacred 
eanon. It is placed among the minor prophets, on account 
of which the critics think it cannot be regarded as literal 
history, as it is the only work of the kind in that division 
of the Old Testament books. It contains no prophecy, but 
simple narrative. In that respect, we are frank to say, it is 
unlike the other books of its division. But how will it help 
the matter to call it an allegory? The other minor proph- 
ecies are not allegory ; why should this one be placed among 
them? It is the only entire book of the Bible that is alle- 
gory, unless we except Job,* and therefore it ought either 
to be classed alone or be placed with the book of Job. Its 
position, therefore, among the minor prophets is no argu- 
ment whatever for its allegorical character. More than that, 
we do not know that the most strenuous advocate of the 
plenary inspiration of the Bible would contend that the 
order and arrangement of the Biblical books is a matter 
of inspiration. However, if Jonah was a prophet—and he 
is so ealled in 2 Kings 14:25—and if he wrote the book 
himself as an actual experience, that would be a good reason 
for classifying this work in the schedule of the prophets. 
The title of this special division is ‘‘The Minor Prophets.’’ 
Jonah was one of the minor prophets. Remember that the 
distinctive title is not ‘‘The Minor Prophecies.’’ Dr. Keil 
says: ‘“‘Ifthen ... the compilers of the canon have placed 
the book among the minor prophets, this can only have 


* The author, however, does not accept the view that the book of 
Job is an allegory. 


THE BOOK OF JONAH 165 


been done because they were firmly convinced that the 
prophet Jonah was the author.’’ 

And more, every one at all versed in Biblical lore ought 
to know that a prophet is one who speaks for God, whether 
he predicts or not.* Did not Jonah speak for God when he 
preached to the Ninevites? God said to him (8: 2): ‘‘ Arise, 
go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the 
preaching that I bid thee.’’ 

The critics maintain that the book must have had a late 
origin, exilic or post-exilic; that it was written by some 
unknown author long after the prophet’s own time, which 
was the reign of Jeroboam II. The proof of this, they 
contend, is found in the language employed. In the compass 
of this chapter we cannot go into the linguistic and literary 
discussion, but will content ourselves with quoting the sub- 
stance of the learned Dr. Keil’s remarks on the subject: 
‘‘The Aramaisms’’—here he mentions quite a long list of 
them—‘‘belong either to the speech of Galilee or the lan- 
guage of ordinary discourse, and are very far from being 
proofs of a later age, since it cannot be proved with cer- 
tainty that any one of these words was unknown in the 
early Hebrew usage. . . . The only non-Hebraic word, viz., 
mayam, which is used in the sense of command, and applied 
to the edict of the king of Assyria, was heard by Jonah 
in Nineveh, where it was used as a technical term, and was 
transferred by him. The reminiscences which occur in 
Jonah’s prayer are all taken from the Psalms of David or 
his contemporaries, which were generally known in Israel 
long before the prophet’s day.’’ 

Christ’s allusions to Jonah are of such a character as to 
be almost, perhaps wholly, convincing that He believed the 
prophet to be a historical personage and his experience in 
the shark’s stomach and in Nineveh to be actual occur- 


| ™*The word ‘‘prophesy’’ does not mean to foretell, but to speak 
for. 


166 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


rences. The most striking passage is Matt. 12: 39-41. The 
first two verses are as follows: ‘‘But He answered and said 
unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after 
a sign; and there shall be no sign given to it but the sign 
of Jonah the prophet: for as Jonah was three days and 
three nights in the belly of the sea-monster; so shall the 
Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart 
of the earth.’’ It is just possible that Jesus might have 
made use of a mythical story for the purpose of illustra- 
tion, aS men sometimes illustrate their sermons by refer- 
ence to well-known fictitious incidents; but somehow there 
is an air of verisimilitude about the language of our Lord 
that makes one feel that he was alluding to something that 
both he and his hearers believed to be an actual occurrence. 
It is almost certain that the Jews to whom He spoke be- 
lieved the story of the sea-monster to be a real event, and 
if Jesus knew it was not, He was not dealing frankly with 
them, but was rather lending countenance to their error. 
Note the positive character of the language: ‘‘As Jonah 
was in the sea-monster’s belly, so shall the Son of man be 
in the heart of the earth.’’ If the Jonah incident was real, 
the burial of Jesus would be real also. If the former was 
mythical—well, to say the least, it would not have been a 
very fortunate comparison, for some one in the audience 
who was keener than the rest might have put the speaker 
in a cul-de-sac by saying, ‘‘The Jonah-whale story is a 
myth; so your statement about lying in the heart of the 
earth must be myth too.’’ Again, if Jesus did not know 
that Jonah’s adventure was merely legendary or parabol- 
ical, what becomes of His divinity ? 

In the next verse—the 41st—He says: ‘‘The men of 
Nineveh shall stand up in the judgment with this genera- 
tion, and shall condemn it: for they repented at the preach- 
ing of Jonah, and, behold, a greater than Jonah is here.”’ 
The oftener you read that over, the more it sounds like the 


wa 


THE BOOK OF JONAH 167 


clear statement of fact. ‘‘The men of Nineveh shall stand 

. and shall condemn it.’’ But suppose, on the judg- 
ment day, the men of Nineveh do not appear to condemn 
those hardened Pharisees, because they—the Ninevites— 
did not repent, after all, what then? Jesus was talking 
about a serious matter in that discourse; would He have 
been likely to make use of a myth to enforce the lesson? 
Would He have solemnly told the Pharisees before Him 
that they would be confronted and condemned by a host 
of penitent Ninevites who, after all, had never repented ? 
In the great day to which we are all hastening, we wonder 
whether those Pharisees will look around for those contrite 
Ninevites, and will look in vain! However trenchant the 
illustration may have seemed when it came from our 
Saviour’s lips, it will lose its force on the day of the great 
assize—the very time, too, when He meant that it should 
be verified and have its most telling effect. Mythical peni- 
tents surely will not put those impenitent Pharisees to 
very great confusion on the judgment day! 

Notice, too, that our Lord adds, ‘‘A greater than Jonah 
is here.’’ But if Jonah’s preaching to the Ninevites was 
only a bit of fiction, Jonah was not a very great preacher, 
and the contrast loses its force. Would Christ in His in- 

finite wisdom have called Himself greater than a mythical 
- personage? In the next few verses he refers to Solomon 
and the queen of Sheba. Were they also mythical charac- 
ters? If not, what right had He to make use of myths and 
historical events in the same breath and to illustrate the 
same truth without making any explanation or distinction? 
To say the very least, that would scarcely have been dis- 
ingenuous. 

Our remaining arguments will be based upon the nature 
and style of the book in connection with the general prin- 
ciples of evidence. It is not probable that a Jew would 
have composed a parable like the book of Jonah, which 


168 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


teaches doctrines entirely contrary to the conceptions of the 
Jewish people relative to the heathen. The Ninevites were 
among their enemies and oppressors, and the prophets were 
fortetelling that the time would come when Assyria would 
swallow them up in a terrible captivity. What Jew would 
care to compose and scatter abroad a book that would aim 
to teach the Jews that their arch foes were included in 
God’s scheme of mercy? If the work is veritable history, 
God Himself became their teacher through an actual 
incident. 

In reading the narrative one cannot fail to be impressed 
with the directness, simplicity and artlessness of its style 
and the air of verisimilitude that surrounds it. It does not 
read like fiction, like myth, like an Arabian Nights story. 
There is nothing in the manner of the telling to indicate 
that its author meant it as an allegory. Compare it with 
the historical portions of Isaiah or Jeremiah or even the 
strictly historical books of the Old Testament, and you will 
see that it reads just like them, bearing the marks of real 
history and not of fiction. If it is an allegory and was 
indited by the Holy Spirit, then the Spirit did His work 
in such a way as to lead the vast majority of readers in 
ancient and modern times to believe it to be veritable his- 
tory, and that would be deception on a pretty large scale. 
An act that we are not willing to ascribe to the Spirit of 
God. If it is merely a story with a didactic purpose, we 
maintain that there should have been something to indicate 
that it was a piece of composition of that character. Look 
at all the parables of the Bible. In every instance there is 
something either in the context or the imagery that clearly 
indicates their figurative character. Not one of the para- 
bles of our Lord can be mistaken for literal history. On 
the other hand, no historical portion of the gospels can be 
mistaken for parable or simile. 

But here is something still more serious. Jonah was a 


THE BOOK OF JONAH 169 


real personage, a prophet living and prophesying in the 
time of Jeroboam II. Would a writer of his age or a later 
one have been so bold as to manufacture a piece of fiction 
like this book with a well-known propket of Israel as its 
hero? And especially would he have dared to represent 
him to be of so narrow, squeamish and even peevish a 
disposition? Would not the Jews have resented such a 
story the moment it was circulated? Still more, would an 
allegorist have been so bold as to put the great and well- 
known city of Nineveh into his story and represent it as 
having repented so thoroughly at the preaching of a Hebrew 
prophet? Why, he would have brought down upon him- 
self the ridicule of both Jews and Ninevites for composing 
so whimsical and improbable a story! And nothing so com- 
pletely fails of its didactic purpose as a poorly constructed 
and unnatural piece of fiction, no matter how sincere the 
purpose of its author. 

Taken all in all, therefore, we cannot help looking upon 
the noble and impressive book of Jonah as historical verity. 

Nore.—We recommend the following literature on the 
book of Jonah: C. F. Keil: ‘‘Commentary on the Minor 
Prophets’; J. W. McGarvey: ‘‘Jesus and Jonzh’’ (con- 
tains a review of Driver on this book) ; R. A. Torrey: ‘‘ Diffi- 
culties in the Bible’’ (pages 76-79); Von Orelli: ‘‘The 
Twelve Minor Prophets’’; J. Kennedy: ‘‘The Book ‘of 
Jonah’’; J. R. Sampey: Article on Jonah in ‘‘The Inter- 
national Standard Bible Encyclopedia’’; R. D. Wilson: 
“The Authenticity of Jonah’’ (Princeton Theological Re- 
view, April and July, 1918). 


CHAPTER IX 


_ 


CHRIST’S WITNESS TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 


Another Chapter on Biblical Criticism* 


PERHAPS it will not be entirely superfluous to state brief- 
ly what is the teaching of the liberal crities relative to the 
Old Testament. We shall mention only the main points of 
their contention. 

First, they hold to the documentary theory of the Pen- 
tateuch—that is, that at least four different documents are 
to be discovered in this portion of the Bible. These docu- 
ments are labeled J, E, D and P, corresponding to the 
terms Jehovistic, Elohistic, Deuteronomie and Priestly. 
They were edited and welded together more or less crudely 
and blunderingly by various redactors, until they were 
finally cast into their present form. By a process of literary 
analysis and dissection the critics maintain that they are 
able to separate the Pentateuch—or, rather, the Hexateuch 
—into its various original component parts. 

The original documents were not composed at an early 
age, aS the Bible history would lead us to believe, nor even 


* Several years after this chapter had appeared in a theological 
review, we learned of Dr. C. F. Noesgen’s book, ‘‘The New Testa- 
ment and the Pentateuch,’’ which was translated from the German 
by Mr. C. H. Irwin and was issued in English in 1905 by the Re- 
ligious Tract Society, London. After reading this satisfying and 
masterly work, our wonder has grown to amazement that critics like 
Cheyne, Driver, Kent, Foster, Toy, Bade, Peritz, Sanders, et al, 
have had the conscience to go on and on repeating the stock tenets 
of their school without so much as naming this great conservative 
authority. 


170 


CHRIST’S WITNESS TO OLD TESTAMENT 171 


edited and compiled by Moses, but J had its origin about 
800 B. C.; E about 750 B. C.; D about 620 B. C., and P 
about 444 B. C.; between the last date and 280 B. C. this 
last document was joined with JED by a final redactor; 
and thus we have the Hexateuch in its present form. Who 
the original writers were, and why they wrote, no one 
knows. By some of these critics not a word is said about 
the Holy Spirit having had any part in the composition 
of this portion of the Bible; all of it is attributed to a 
purely human origin and development. Others try to hold 
to a doctrine of inspiration, but it surely is very indeter- 
minate and tenuous. There is, in fact, little or no intima- 
tion in the work of the critics that ‘‘holy men of old wrote 
as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.’’ 

In the second place, the narrative portions of the Old 
Testament are, according to the critics, not historical, but 
largely mythical, legendary or allegorical. To make good 
this statement, we insert here a quotation from a recent 
writer of this school who says: ‘‘Modern research has 
made plain that there are at least three stages of Old 
Testament history which vary in character and historic 
accuracy. We find in the first chapter of Genesis early 
traditions of creation, either from Babylonian or prehistoric 
Semitic tribes, adapted to the monotheistic belief of Israel. 
The ages described were marked by myth, allegory and 
primitive ideas as to the method of creation and the origin 
and distribution of tribes and languages. The second 
period—the patriarchal—was bathed in an atmosphere of 
legend. The core of the stories was historic, but the note 
of legend and romance gave an idyllic and patriotic halo 
to the early patriarchal life of Israel. Abraham, Isaac, 
Jacob and Joseph were actual personages, but their biogra- 


phies move in a glow of heroic idealism.’’* Says Samuel 


* Quoted from Edwin Heyl Delk’s ‘‘The Need of a Restatement 
of Theology’? (p. 31)—a work that is extremely radical in its 
liberalism, but lacks in logical coherence. 


172 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


Davidson: ‘‘The narratives of the Pentateuch are usually 
trustworthy, though partly mythical and legendary. The 
miracles recorded are the exaggerations of a later age’’ 
(‘“Introduction to the Old Testament,’’ p. 131). Accord- 
ing to George Adam Smith, ‘‘the framework of the first 
eleven chapters of Genesis is woven from the raw material 
of myth and legend. He denies their historical character,’’ 
and declares that he can find no proof in archeology for 
the personal existence of the patriarchs themselves. Later 
on, he admits the extreme possibility that the stories of the 
patriarchs may have historical elements at the heart of 
them. (See his ‘‘Modern Criticism and the Preaching of 
the Old Testament,’’ pp. 90-106.) 

In his Bampton Lectures for 1903, Prof. Sanday, who 
is regarded as quite conservative in comparison with 
Kuenen, Wellhausen and Cheyne, advances some very 
tenuous ideas relative to the ‘‘divine element’’ in the books 
of the Old Testament. Another says of Dr. Sanday’s view 
of ‘‘the divine element’’: ‘‘What that really is he does 
not accurately declare. The language always vapors off 
into the vague and indefinite, when he speaks of it,’’ that 
is, the divine element. ‘‘In what books it is he does not 
say.’’ Here are a few quotations from Sanday: ‘‘It is 
present in different books and parts of books in different 
degrees’’; ‘‘In some the divine element is at the maximum; 
in others at the minimum.’’ He is not always sure where 
the divine element comes in. However, he is sure it is not 
in Esther, Ecclesiastes and Daniel. ‘‘If it is in the his- 
torical books,’’ says a critic of Sanday, ‘‘it is there as 
conveying a religious lesson rather than as a guarantee of 
historie veracity ; rather as interpreting than as narrating.’’ 
Anent another crucial matter, Dr. Sanday says: ‘‘How- 
ever much we may believe that there is a genuine Mosaic 
foundation in the Pentateuch, it is difficult to lay the 
finger upon it, and to say with confidence, here Moses 


CHRIST’S WITNESS TO OLD TESTAMENT 173 


himself is speaking.’’ Again: ‘‘The strictly Mosaic element 
in the Pentateuch must be indeterminate.’’ And yet the 
account itself says again and again, in Exodus, Numbers, 
Leviticus and Deuteronomy, ‘‘ The Lord spake unto Moses,’’ 
‘*Moses spoke to the people,’’ ‘‘Moses wrote in the book 
of the covenant.’’ For an offset to Sanday’s grudging 
deference to Moses, let any one take a concordance and 
see how often Moses is mentioned in the four books named 
above. 

The third point in the teaching of the critics relates 
to the manner in which the Old Testament literature was 
imposed upon the Jewish people. According to the simple 
narrative of the Bible itself (2 Kings 22 and 23; 2 Chron. 
34 and 3d) Hilkiah, the priest, in the days of King Josiah, 
discovered “‘the book of the law’’ in the temple, which was 
then undergoing repairs, and handed it to Shaphan, the 
seribe, who carried it to the king, and read it to him. On 
account of the revelations made by the book, Josiah be- 
came deeply penitent, and brought about a reformation 
among the people of Judah. The Chronicler (2 Chron. 
34:14) says distinctly that the book was ‘‘the book of the 
law of Jehovah given by Moses.’’ So far the Bible. It 
is all very simple and clear, has an air of reality, and reads 
like veritable history. 

But the critics—what say they? To them it seems to 
matter little what the Bible itself really says; they must 
reconstruct the history to fit to their theories, which they 
do in this wise: Hilkiah and his fellow-priests, being 
moved by the laudable desire to reform the people of 
Judah, who had gone far astray from God, deliberately 
composed this book of the law themselves, pretended that 
they had found it in the temple, attributed it to Moses to 
give it an air of antiquity and authority, and thus foisted 
it upon King Josiah and his subjects. And king and peo- 
ple received it, too, apparently without question or exam- 


174 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


ination. How they could be so easily deceived, if they 
really knew nothing or little about Moses and the book 
of the law, is, to our mind, one of the outstanding and 
astounding miracles of the disintegrating criticism. On 
the part of Hilkiah and his coadjutors this book of the 
law was a pure forgery, to call things by their right name; 
but the critics do not want so harsh a name given to the 
transaction. It should be called only a ‘‘pious fraud,’’ 
and was quite justifiable in view of the righteous desire 
on the part of the priests to inaugurate a real reformation. 
Thus the Jesuitical motto, ‘‘The end justifies the means,’’ 
finds advocates among the expert ‘‘modern”’ critics, And 
thus, too, the element of divine inspiration is carefully 
guarded and upheld by them! Perhaps the inspiration in 
this enterprise was the priestly desire to reform the people. 
Well, if the Holy Spirit moved the priests to try to bring 
about a much-needed reformation, why did He not inspire 
them as well to use honest and straightforward means? An- 
other query that rises in our mind is this: If the people 
would believe the priests when they perpetrated a literary 
forgery, why would they not have believed them just as 
readily if they had come forward with a clear, ringing, 
honest proclamation of the law of righteousness and the 
need of repentance and reform? To our way of thinking, 
they employed the more difficult method, and the one that 
was the less likely to succeed. 

However, this is not the end. The people of Judah soon 
relapsed into idolatry; and were carried away into cap- 
tivity to Babylon. Under the leadership of Nehemiah and 
Ezra, many of them were led back from their exile, and 
then, in order to reform them again, Ezra and his priests 
had recourse to a method of forgery similar to the one 
that had succeeded so remarkably in the days of Josiah. 
Again the book of the law, falsely attributed to Moses, 
was brought out; and, as in the first instance, so now the 


CHRIST’S WITNESS TO OLD TESTAMENT 175 


people accepted the imposture, and followed the lead of 
their deceivers. Even the Samaritans, though repudiated 
by Nehemiah and plotting against the returned exiles, 
nevertheless, in some mysterious way, were induced to 
receive the Pentateuch from the hands of their enemies 
as the inspired writing of Moses! It is past belief what 
an influence that ‘‘mythical’’ Moses exercised over those 
Jews and Samaritans. In the hands of Hilkiah and Ezra 
his name seemed to be a name to charm by. What they as 
living, actual persons could not accomplish, that was com- 
paratively easy for a mythical character to do! 

Now, the foregoing, according to the critics, is the theory 
of the composition and history of the Old Testament; for 
the Psalms, Proverbs and Prophecies are treated in prac- 
tically the same way by these dexterous analysts. Although 
we have hinted at some of the difficulties that these hypo- 
theses encounter, our chief purpose in this chapter is to 
Show that it is entirely out of accord with the testimony 
of the New Testament relative to the Old. We have no 
desire to use an ad hominem argument, nor to make an 
appeal to policy or fear; yet we do feel impelled to point 
out the gravity of the situation, if the views of the liberal 
critics should become prevalent. Every man should look 
before he leaps; that is only the dictate of common sense; 
and so the critics themselves should try to realize what 
will be the effect of their advocacy upon the faith of the 
people in Christ and His Gospel as set forth in the New 
Testament. However, if the pulverizing critics insist on 
looking at the Old Testament in a purely critical and dis- 
passionate spirit, we will also try to consider, in the same 
temper, Christ’s attitude toward those ancient Scriptures. 

That Christ had before Him the same Old Testament 
cenon that we have to-day no critic will undertake to deny. 
The Old Testament canon was established several centuries 
before the time of our Lord. We cannot take the time to 


176 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


prove this statement historically, but the facts are set 
forth in a number of recent works on Biblical eriticism. 
We would especially refer to Dr. A. J. F. Behrends’ valua- 
ble book, ‘‘The Old Testament Under Fire,’’ pages 79-85. 
Even Prof. Sanday “‘cannot resist the historical evidence 
that a hundred years before Christ the Old Testament, 
as we now have it, was universally regarded as inspired 
Scripture’’; so says Dr. Behrends. Let this fact be kept 
in mind, then, that Jesus referred always to the very same 
Old Testament which we have to-day. 

Now, how did Christ look upon the Old Testament? It 
is evident that He regarded it as the veritable Word of 
God; else why would He say to Satan, ‘‘It is written,’’ 
and then quote from Deuteronomy, as if that were the 
end of controversy? Why did He so often refer to inei- 
dents in the Old Testament as being paralleled by incidents 
in His own career? Why did He say, ‘‘To-day is this 
Scripture fulfilled in your ears’’? Why did He say that 
not a jot nor tittle would pass from the law till all be 
fulfilled? Again and again He spoke about the proph- 
ecies of the Old Testament being fulfilled in Him. Since 
no one but God can foresee and predict the future, Jesus 
must have believed that the prophets were inspired, or 
they never could have uttered prophecies that were exactly 
fulfilled so many centuries after their proclamation. 

Various subterfuges—at least, they seem so—are em- 
ployed by the critics to account for Christ’s attitude of 
reverence toward the Old Testament. Some of them main- 
tain, for example, that He accommodated Himself to the 
views of the Jewish people with whom He associated. 
That means, put in plain language, that, though He knew 
better, He treated the Old Testament as if it were his- 
torical and the Pentateuch as if it had been written by 
Moses; and this He did simply because the Jews held that 
view, and He did not want to antagonize them. Was not 


CHRIST’S WITNESS TO OLD TESTAMENT 177 


that disingenuous in Christ? Was it not a case of trim- 
ming? Could He have properly called Himself ‘‘the 
truth,’’ if He pretended that the Old Testament was his- 
torical and the law the work of Moses, when He knew 
they were not? Really what becomes of our Lord’s in- 
tegrity in such circumstances? More than that, if the 
critics are right, and He knew it, why did He not tell the 
truth about the Old Testament Scriptures? Why did He 
permit His followers for centuries to rest under error in 
so vital a matter? In a very few words He might have 
told them that much of the Old Testament was lacking in 
‘‘the divine element,’’ and that Moses wrote little or none 
of the Pentateuch. He was careful to tell the Pharisees 
that they had elossed and corrupted the Scriptures, and 
were teaching for the true Scriptural doctrine the tradi- 
tions of men. He said bluntly to the Sadducees, ‘‘Ye do 
err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God.’’ 
While He was so fearlessly pointing out their errors in this 
respect, why could He not just as plainly have told them 
the truth about the origin of the Scriptures? Instead of 
doing that, He actually defended the Scriptures against 
their false interpretations. 

Perhaps it may be replied that it was not safe to dis- 
turb the faith of the Jews in the Old Testament. Then 
error is safer than truth, and yet Christ said, ‘‘Ye shall 
know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.’’ And 
He promised His disciples that the Holy Spirit would 
“lead them into all truth.’’ Besides, if it was not safe 
then for Christ to disturb the implicit faith of the Jews 
in their sacred writings, is it safe for the critics to dis- 
turb the faith of the people now? 

However, the critics who are anxious to be considered 
evangelical have another explanation ready at hand, and 
that we must now deal with. They say that Christ, in the 
days of His humiliation, was not endued with all knowl- 


178 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


edge; that there were many things He did not know, be- 
cause He had assumed human nature and with it human 
limitation, There was, they contend, an actual kenosis of 
the divine. To uphold this view they quote Luke 2:52: 
“‘And Jesus advanced in wisdom and stature, and in 
favor with God and man.’’ Also: ‘‘But of that day and 
hour knoweth no man, not even the angels of heaven, 
neither the Son, but the Father only’’ (Matt. 24:36). 

But the arguments of the critics are not sound. In the 
first place, Jesus was divine as well as human. While in 
and of His humanity by itself He was not omniscient, 
yet in His divinity He was, just as is declared in John 
2:25: “‘He needed not that any should bear witness 
concerning man; for He Himself knew what was in man.’’ 
Again and again He displayed wisdom and knowledge that 
were far beyond mere human attainment; for instance, 
when He said to the Scribes and Pharisees, ‘‘Why reason 
ye in your hearts?’’ (Luke 5:22); when He knew the 
woman had touched him in the throng (Mark 5:30); 
when He predicted his own betrayal, death and resurrec- 
tion, the destruction of Jerusalem, the day of Pentecost, 
and the remarkable spread of His kingdom. Now if He 
was endued with supernatural wisdom in so many ways, 
why should He not have known that Moses did not write 
the Pentateuch and that large portions of the Old Testa- 
ment were mere myth and legend? 

Again, even if we were to admit that, because of the 
kenosis, Jesus did not know all things, especially such 
things as the Father saw fit to hide from Him for the 
time being, that is very different from attributing erroneous 
teaching to Him. Nowhere did He admit that He taught 
error; on the contrary, He always claimed to teach the 
truth and only the truth. If He ever taught error, He 
could not have been a perfect man, and therefore could 
not have been a true example for the world. Kenosis or 


CHRIST’S WITNESS TO OLD TESTAMENT 179 


no kenosis, He declared that He always did the will of 
His Father (John 5:30), and kept His commandments 
(John 15:10), and spoke as the Father taught him (John 
8:28). Therefore He must have always taught the truth, 
having been, during the period of His humiliation, com- 
pletely under the guidance of the Father, to whose will 
and direction He submitted in all things. But if He every- 
where gave the impression that He thought the Bible was 
the fully inspired Word of God and that Moses gave the 
law, then He taught error by implication, and did it 
throughout His whole life, even after His resurrection. 
Surely that view would destroy the perfect manhood of 
our Savior, to say nothing of His Godhood. The doctrine 
of the kenosis of the Logos, therefore, even if it were 
admitted, cannot be employed to bolster up the disin- 
tegrating theories of the critics; for if Christ taught error, 
either directly or by implication, His Messiahship is made 
null and void; He broke the law of God, and so could not 
have fulfilled all righteousness. What that means respect- 
ing faith in Christ all must know without preachment on 
our part. 

Nor is that all. If there was a kenosis of the Logos, it 
ceased with our Lord’s resurrection, when His state of 
exaltation was in process. Read the beautiful story of 
Christ’s meeting with the two disciples on their way to 
Emmaus, and you will see that He spoke most emphatic 
and unequivocal words respecting the Old Testament: 
‘And He said unto them, O foolish men, and slow of 
heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! ... 
And beginning from Moses and from all the prophets, He 
interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things con- 
cerning Himself’’ (Luke 24:25-27). And it would seem 
that the Holy Spirit sanctioned and emphasized His teach- 
ing respecting the Old Testament, for the two disciples 
afterward said one to the other: ‘‘Did not our hearts 


180 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


burn within us, while He spake to us in the way, while 
He opened to us the Scriptures?’’ 

It may be said in reply that it was not important for 
the disciples to know anything about the questions of eriti- 
cism that are now agitating the public mind, and there- 
fore He did not go out of His way to give them unneeded 
information. If that is true, perhaps such information is 
not important to-day. Why should it be needed now, if 
not then? And if it is not necessary or important, why 
all this painstaking and infinitesimal labor to establish 
the critical theories? There are men in more than one 
theological school who are Spending all their time and 
strength in searching land and sea to make good their 
views and to exploit them before the world. And they are 
compelling evangelical scholars to spend just as much 
precious time and effort to investigate the facts and learn 
whether the new theories are true or not. And all this over 
questions that it was not worth while for our Lord even 
to mention or hint at! What a big ado about a little! 
Surely the work of the critics cannot be of much ‘‘religi- 
ous’’ value. 

Still another consideration is apropos at this place. We 
have already said that Christ could never have taught un- 
truth or error without nullifying His perfection as the 
God-man. Still, we know that He reserved some truths to 
be revealed by His Spirit after his ascension to the right 
hand of God; for He said (John 16:12,13): ‘‘I have yet 
many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them 
now. Howbeit, when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He 
shall guide you into all truth; for He shall not speak 
from Himself; but what things soever He shall hear, these 
Shall He speak: and He shall declare unto you the things 
that are to come.”’ 

The question now is, did the Holy Spirit ever impart 
to the disciples any hint that the Old Testament was not 


“CHRIST’S WITNESS TO OLD TESTAMENT 181 


throughout the Word of God; that it was largely com- 
posed of myths, traditions, legends and allegories; that its 
historical‘narratives were bathed in an atmosphere of folk- 
lore; that only a very.small portion of the Pentateuch was 
written by Moses; that the Hexateuch is composed of vari- 
ous documents loosely strung together by redactors; that 
most of the law and its historical setting was forged by 
Hilkiah and Ezra, and then foisted upon the people as an 
ancient composition to bring about a spiritual reformation? 
Were any of these ‘‘assured results’’ of the higher critics 
among the things that the disciples ‘‘could not bear’’ at 
the time, but that the Spirit afterward revealed to them? 
The answer is, No! On the contrary, the apostles every- 
where treated the Old Testament just as their Master did— 
as if it were the veritable Word of God, and as if there 
were not the remotest doubt about it. At Pentecost, under 
the most powerful influence of the Holy Spirit, Peter arose 
and preached an epoch-making sermon that brought three 
thousand people to their knees. How did he treat the Old 
Testament? He quoted a long passage from the prophet 
Joel and two passages from the Psalms of David to prove 
that Jesus was the Messiah and that now He had poured out 
the Spirit upon His Church. He quoted from the Old 
Testament as final authority to those Jews who had cruci- 
fied Christ, and never hinted that the Psalms were written 
in the days of the Maccabees, or that the prophecy of Joel 
was written long after the prophet lived! Under the Spir- 
it’s dominance that would have been the time to tell the 
truth and the whole truth. But how many people do you 
suppose would have been converted on Pentecost, if Peter 
had gone into the critical and dissecting process in his 
dealing with the Old Testament? The very fact that the 
Holy Spirit used the Word of God so effectively on that 
day, causing thousands to ery out, ‘‘What shall we do?’’ 
affords convincing proof to the evangelical scholar and 


182 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


believer that He—the Holy Spirit—placed His stamp of 
endorsement upon the Old Testament as God’s inspired 
truth. 

Subsequently when Stephen, at the time of his martyr- 
dom and under the power of the Spirit, delivered his 
wonderful swan sermon, he recited a resume of the Old 
Testament history, beginning with the call of Abraham 
away back in Genesis, And he rehearsed it all as if it were 
actual history. Throughout, God is represented as inspir- 
ing and directing his servants, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, 
Joseph, Moses, Aaron, David and Solomon, Nor is there 
a hint that any of these characters were mythical or leg- 
endary. If they were, the Spirit was not guiding Stephen 
into the truth. 

In course of time Peter wrote three epistles. Did the 
Holy Spirit, whom Christ promised to the apostles, lead 
Peter to any of the higher critical conclusions respecting 
the Old Testament? Perhaps by this time, at all events, 
his faith would be strong enough to bear the truths that 
were too profound and mysterious for him before the 
Spirit came. But, no! instead of being led to treat the 
Old Testament as a human book, full of traditions, myths, 
legends and historical and other errors, he actually wrote 
the following sublime tribute to the Hebrew Scriptures 
(2 Pet. 1:19-21) : ‘‘ And we have the word of the prophecy 
made sure; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as 
unto a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawn 
and the day-star arise'in your hearts: knowing this first, 
that no prophecy of Scripture is of private interpretation ;* 
for no prophecy ever came by the will of man, but holy 
men spake from God, being moved by the Holy Spirit.’’ 7 


* Literal translation: ‘‘of its own unloosing ’’—that is, of mere 
human origin. 


t Note how emphatic the precise order of the original Greek is: 
‘*But, being borne along by the Holy Spirit, spake the holy men of 
God.’’ 


—————————— 


CHRIST’S WITNESS TO OLD TESTAMENT 183 


This passage, this great passage, indeed, should be pon- 
dered well before men go over to the position of the rad- 
ical criticism. Is it any wonder that many good men can- 
not see how any one can hold to that position and yet con- 
sistently law claim to being truly evangelical? 

But perhaps Paul, who was a highly educated man and 
who also claimed to have the Spirit of Christ, received 
more light than his fellow-apostles as to the real status of 
the Old Testament. He was a bold and fearless thinker, 
never accepting anything except on the best evidence, and 
he was just as courageous in proclaiming what he believed 
to be the truth. Did he utter a word in all his writings 
that would give the least color to the ‘‘myth-legend-alle- 
gory’’ theory? Did he ever hint that anything in the 
Old Testament was not inspired, or that Moses was not a 
real character, or that he was not the author of the books 
commonly ascribed to him? Nota word! Had he known 
these things, he surely would have been honest enough to 
concede them. In his contest with the Judaizing teachers 
he might have made telling use of the higher critical 
theories, by saying that most of the Old Testament was 
legendary, that the ‘‘divine element’’ was very indeter- 
minate, that the law was not Mosaic, that many of the 
prophecies were written after the predicted events had 
occurred, that most of the Old Testament was fiction in- 
vented by Hilkiah and Ezra, and that, therefore, they— 
the Jews—were entirely mistaken in supposing that they 
would need to keep the ceremonial law. What an advan- 
tage that would have given him in the argument! But, 
behold! he never used his opportunity. He treated the 
Old Testament as if it was the very Word of God, and 
mobilized his arguments along an entirely different line 
—that is, by showing that Christ was the fulfillment of all 
the divinely given types and symbols and prophecies of 
the Jewish covenant. Note his commendation of the Old 


184 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


Testament in 2 Tim. 3:14-17: ‘‘But abide thou in the 
things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, 
knowing of whom thou hast learned them; and that from 
a babe thou hast known the Sacred Writings, which are 
able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which 
is in Christ Jesus. Every Scripture is God-breathed 
(theopneustos), and is profitable for teaching,’’ ete. We 
give the translation which we believe to be the correct one. 
Does that sound like the declaration of a man who had 
vague, indeterminate ideas of the inspiration of the Sacred 
Writings which were ‘‘able to make wise unto salvation’’? 
If the negative critics are right, the Holy Spirit must have 
led Paul into error rather than into truth. 

And now having, as we think, established the position 
that Christ and His apostles looked upon the Old Testament 
as the veritable Word of inspiration, and that they never 
for a moment gave a hint that it was not historical when 
it professed to recite history, let us examine somewhat in 
detail Christ’s treatment of its records. We will see that 
in every case it is diametrically opposed to the position of 
the analytical critics. True, as Dr. T. E. Schmauk Says 
so well in his acute work, ‘‘The Negative Criticism and 
the Old Testament,’’ we must not make Christ responsible 
for merely human teachings, Speculations and interpreta- 
tions; and therefore we appreciate that here we are tread- 
ing on sacred ground, and must be as judicial as possible. 
However, knowing that in Christ’s day the Old Testament 
canon was precisely what it is to-day and that the Jews 
regarded it as the Word of God, we may very readily infer 
Christ’s attitude toward it from His manner of quoting 
it and referring to it. We will see that He treated all the 
books of the Pentateuch as Sacred Writing, and attributed 
at least large portions of them to Moses. 

First, as to Genesis. In Matt. 19 :3-12 there is the account 
of a contest between Christ and the Pharisees relative to 


CHRIST’S WITNESS TO OLD TESTAMENT 185 


divorcee: ‘‘And there came unto Him Pharisees, trying 
Him, and saying: Is it lawful for a man to put away his 
wife for every cause?’’ Now observe His answer: ‘‘ And 
He answered and said: Have ye not read that He who 
made them from the beginning made them male and 
female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave his 
father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and they 
two shall become one flesh? So that they are no more two, 
but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, 
let no man put asunder.’’ Turn to Gen. 2:18-25, where 
you will find the writing or history to which Christ re- 
ferred and from which He made a direct quotation. There 
is also a clear allusion to Gen. 1:27, where we read, ‘‘Male 
and female created He them.’’ He refers to a book, for he 
says, ‘‘Have ye not read?’’ What book could it have been 
but the book of Genesis? Observe again that He says: 
‘“He who made them from the beginning.’’ The antecedent 
of “‘He’’ is God. So Christ taught by the clearest possible 
inference that God created man and woman in the way 
described in the first and second chapters of Genesis, and 
on this divine and historical fact He bases one of the most 
vital practical laws of human life, namely, the true rule of 
marriage. But suppose the Genetical account is only ‘‘tra- 
dition,’’ ‘‘myth,’’ ‘‘allegory’’! Would the divine Christ 
have founded an organic relation of human life on mere 
fiction? No, that would be frivolous, inane. What would 
you think of a reformer to-day who would try to base a 
fundamental law of life on the Greek or the Norse my- 
thology? Therefore we have our Lord’s own direct and 
unequivocal testimony to the historical veracity of the first 
and second chapters of Genesis. No doubt of this fact is 
possible because Christ adds: ‘‘ What therefore God hath 
joimed together let not man put asunder.’’ What insin- 
cerity it would have indicated for Christ to say this, if He 
knew that the Genetical story was only mythical! That 


186 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


would have been using the ad hominwm argument, and, 
worse still, would have been ad captandum. trickery. 

In the next place, Christ endorses the story of Abel as 
recited in the fourth chapter of Genesis. See Matt. 23:35 
and Luke 11:51: ‘‘That upon you may come all the 
righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of Abel, the 
righteous, unto the blood of Zachariah,’’ ete. How could 
the hard-hearted Jews be guilty of the blood of Abel if 
he was only a legendary character? To give point to the 
reference, He calls him ‘‘Abel the righteous,’’ showing 
that He accepted the Old Testament narrative at its face 
value and in all its details. 

In Matt. 24:37-39 (also Luke 17:26f.) our Lord refers 


to Noah as a historical personage. The passage is familiar: 


‘‘As were the days of Noah, so shall the coming of the 
Son of Man be,’’ ete. If Noah was a mythical character, 
Christ surely would not have compared the event of the 
flood to His own second coming, which he meant to teach 
would be a real occurrence. Such an allusion would have 
indicated either misinformation or insincerity, and the 
illustration would have lost all point. 

The patriarchal age is often said by the critics to have 
been ‘‘bathed in an atmosphere of legend,’’ only ‘‘the core 
of the stories’’ being historic. Other critics go still further 
and deny the historic reality of the patriarchs in tote. 
Still others contend that they are only the names of tribes. 
What did Christ think, or, at least, what did He profess 
to think? ‘‘Jesus said unto them, If ye were Abraham’s 
children, ye would do the works of Abraham. But now 
ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told the truth: this 
did not Abraham’’ (John 8:39-40). Later in the same 
chapter (8:56-58) he says, under the most solemn circum- 
stances: ‘‘Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day; 
and he saw it and was glad. . .. Before Abraham was 
born, I am.’’ How could Abraham have been born and how 


ee 


—— eee eS 


CHRIST’S WITNESS TO OLD TESTAMENT 187 


could he have rejoiced, if he was only a mythical character? 
Or if only the ‘‘core’’ of the stories is true, how are we 
to know whether Christ had seized upon that core or not, 
seeing that He accepted the entire Old Testament as the 
Word of God? Again Jesus refers to the three patriarchs 
in one breath as follows (Matt. 8:11): ‘‘And I Say unto 
you that many shall come from the east and the west, and 
shall sit down with Abraham and Isaae and Jacob in the 
kingdom of heaven.’’ That would be a most ridiculous way 
to refer to mythical characters, or even ‘‘actual person- 
ages’’ whose ‘‘biographies move in the glow of an heroic 
idealism.’’ Perhaps, then, the kingdom of God is only 
mythical, or else only moves in a glow of idealism. We 
confess that we do not believe it right thus to destroy the 
reality and realism of the historical portions of the Bible, 
Here is another of our Savior’s marvelous statements: 
‘“‘But as touchirig the resurrection of the dead, have ye 
not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, 
I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the 
God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the 
living’’ (Matt. 22:31-32). This remarkable passage de- 
Serves special notice. First, it is a quotation from Ex. 3 :6, 
Showing that Christ regarded Exodus, as well as Genesis, 
as historical. Of course, in Genesis God is referred to 
more than once as the God of the three patriarchs, though 
perhaps they are not all mentioned there in a single sen- 
tence. Then, Christ says, ‘‘that which was spoken unto 
you by God.’’ So it could not bea myth, according to the 
Lord. And again this passage proves that, in Christ’s 
view, these patriarchs not only had a real existence on the 
earth, but had a real existence even in Christ’s day, for 
‘God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.”’ 
Note, too, how Christ refers to Abraham in his parable 
of the rich man and Lazarus, representing him as alive 


188 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


and fully conscious in heaven, called by the Jews Abra- 
ham’s bosom. 

Another Genetical reference is found in Matt. 10:15: 
“‘Verily I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for the 
land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment 
than for that city.’’ Also Matt. 11:24; Luke 10:12. In 
this connection Luke 17:32 may be quoted: ‘‘Remember 
Lot’s wife.’’ Here we have Christ’s own most solemn 
appeal to the people of his day to repent and accept His 
Gospel, upon the ground of the terrible fate that overtook 
the cities of the plains and the wife of Lot, as recorded in 
the nineteenth chapter of Genesis. If that story was a 
myth or fable—well, no more need be said. Thus we see 
that Jesus treats the outstanding events of the book of 
Genesis as historical. We have also noted that in one in- 
stance He appeals to an incident in the book of Exodus. 

Let us now scrutinize Christ’s allusions to Moses and 
his writings, and see whether He gives any color to the 
idea that Moses was mythical, or had only a small share 
in the production of the Pentateuch. Our first reference 
will be to Mark 12:26 (cf. Luke 20:37): ‘‘But as touch- 
ing the dead that they are raised, have ye not read in the 
book of Moses, in the passage about the Bush, how God 
spake unto him, saying, I am the God,’’ ete.? Here the 
reference is to Exodus 3:16. The negative critics say that 
Moses did not write the Pentateuch, including Exodus. 
But Jesus expressly calls Exodus the book of Moses. The 
issue seems to be squarely between the critics and Christ. 
Our Lord also treats the event as historical, while many 
of the critics regard it as merely legendary. 

Our next reference is to Matt. 22 :34-40, where Jesus told 
the questioning lawyer which were the greatest command- 
ments—love to God and love to neighbor, adding: ‘‘On 
these two commandments the whole law hangeth, and the 
prophets.’’ Now where in the Old Testament do we find 


CHRIST’S WITNESS TO OLD TESTAMENT 189 


these passages? The second in Lev. 19:18; the first in 
Deut. 6:5. That seems pretty strong endorsement of the 
inspiration of those two books, especially in view of the 
fact that He calls these two commandments the greatest 
of all, and always insists on the keeping of them as essen- 
tial to eternal life. Examine, next, John 3:14: ‘‘And as 
Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the 
Son of Man be lifted up; that whosoever believeth may 
in Him have eternal life.’’ Here is a reference to Num- 
bers 21:8-9, giving Christ’s sanction to this book of the 
Pentateuch, and ascribing the lifting up of the brazen 
serpent to Moses. Besides, here is Christ’s positive admis- 
sion of the miracle of healing that resulted from merely 
looking at the suspended serpent. Unlike the rationalists, 
Christ did not try to elide the miraculous element from the 
Old Testament. The assertion of Samuel Davidson, ‘‘The 
miracles recorded (in the Pentateuch) were the exaggera- 
tions of a later age,’’ would hardly agree with the teach- 
ing of our Lord. We have now found Jesus making ex- 
plicit reference to Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Num- 
bers (as we shall also find in Deuteronomy, ut infra). At 
the time of His temptation by Satan (Matt. 4:1-11) He 
overcame the evil one by three quotations from the Old 
Testament, all of them found in Deuteronomy, the last 
book of the Pentateuch. (See Deut. 8:3; 6:16; 6:13.) In 
each case He makes the solemn asseveration, ‘‘It is writ- 
ten,’’ as if He were quoting from a divine authority that 
even Satan would have to acknowledge. And it is a fact 
that, according to the Gospel, these quotations from Deu- 
teronomy did silence the devil, and cause him to relinquish 
his enterprise of tempting the Son of God. Wonderful 
that a myth or legend would have had such a crushing 
effect upon the devil! One would have thought that he 
would have gloated over Christ, and told Him that, in 
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the critics would 


190 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


prove the book of Deuteronomy to be only a ‘‘pious fraud’’ 
of Josiah’s or Ezra’s day! Note how decisive and sure 
Christ is about the inspiration of Deuteronomy: ‘‘Get thee 
hence, Satan; for it is written, Thou shalt worship the 
Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve.’’ How does 
such language agree with the uncertainty of Sanday and 
some of the other critics, who say we cannot tell which 
parts of the Pentateuch are inspired and which are not? 

Having seen that Christ puts His stamp of approval on 
all the books of the Pentateuch by quoting from them as 
authoritative, we must investigate His position relative to 
their Mosaic authorship. What does He teach? There is 
John 5:45-47: ‘Think not that I will accuse you to the 
Father: there is one that accuseth you, even Moses, on 
whom ye have set your hope. For if ye believed Moses, ye 
would believe me; for he wrote of me. But if ye believe 
not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?’’ He 
was rebuking the Jews, who misinterpreted Moses’ writings 
and therefore did not see their inner prophetic character. 
What writings were regarded as the writings of Moses by 
the Jews—the very Scriptures on which they had set their 
hopes? They were none other than our present Penta- 
teuch, which the Jews then, and for several centuries prior, 
believed was the composition of Moses. In this passage 
Christ takes it for granted that Moses wrote the Pentateuch, 
and even makes the remarkable statement that this writ- 
ing would accuse the unbelieving Jews before God the 
Father. What absurdity this would be if the Pentateuch 
is made up of a number of unauthenticated documents, 
by whom written nobody knows, why written nobody 
knows, and when written nobody knows! 

Another significant passage is Matt. 19:7-8: ‘‘They say 
unto Him, Why then did Moses command to give a bill 
of divorcement, and to put her away? He saith unto them, 
Moses for your hardness of heart suffered you to put away 


CHRIST’S WITNESS TO OLD TESTAMENT 191 


your wives; but from the beginning it hath not been so.’’ 
The reference is to Deut. 24: 1-4, which Christ attributes to 
Moses. The same statement is registered in Mark 10:3. 
Referring to Mark 12:18-27, we note that the Sadducees 
said to Jesus: ‘‘Teacher, Moses wrote unto us, If a man’s 
brother die,’’ ete. Jesus rebuked them in this way: ‘‘Is it 
not for this cause that you err, because ye knew not the 
Scriptures nor the power of God?’’? He admitted here 
that Moses wrote Deuteronomy 25:5, and called it part of 
“the Scriptures.’? We have already alluded to the 26th 
verse of Mark 12: ‘‘Have ye not read in the Book of 
Moses, in the passage about the bush,’’ in which Jesus 
calls Exodus the book of Moses. This is strengthened by 
the parallel passage in Luke 20:37, where Moses is again 
mentioned in connection with the burning bush. It is most 
significant that, in the parable of the rich man and Laz- 
 arus, Christ puts these words into the mouth of Abraham, 
who was speaking to the rich man in torment: ‘“ They 
have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them. . . ihe 
they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they 
be persuaded, if one rise from the dead.’’? Ag Jesus was 
addressing this parable to the Jews, who regarded the 
Pentateuch as the work of Moses, He must have meant 
the same document, which He plainly teaches is of more 
evidential and convincing value than the appearance of 
one from the realm of the dead. No less striking was His 
conversation with the two disciples on their way to Em- 
maus, after His resurrection (Luke 24:27): ‘“‘And begin- 
ning from Moses and from all the prophets, He interpreted 
to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Him- 
self.’? Afterwards they declared that their hearts burned 
within them as He opened to them the Scriptures. Here 
again the reference must be to the Pentateuch as the work 
of Moses, which is sharply distinguished from the prophets. 

Most significant is the passage in John 7:19: ‘‘Did not 


192 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


Moses give you the law? And yet none of you doeth the 
law.’’ Also verses 22, 23: ‘‘Moses hath given you cireum- 
cision (not that it is of Moses, but of the fathers); and 
on the Sabbath ye circumcise a man. If a man receive 
circumcision on the Sabbath that the law may not be 
broken, are ye wroth with me because I have made a man 
every whit whole on the Sabbath?’’ He asserts that Moses 
gave the law— Moses, remember, not some ‘‘ereat un- 
known.’’ Moses also gave the Jews circumcision, referring 
to Lev. 12:3; and yet so accurate, so scrupulously true to 
the Old Testament history; He was, that He says paren- 
thetically that circumcision was not really given by Moses, 
but that it came down to him from ‘‘the fathers.’’? Now 
read Gen. 17:9-14, and you will see that Christ put His 
own divine seal upon the historicity of the covenant that 
God directly made with Abraham, when He commanded 
him to have every male circumcised. With our Lord there 
was no minimizing of ‘‘the divine element’’ in the Old 
Testament. Once when a leper was healed, Christ said 
to him: ‘‘See thou tell no man, but go, show thyself to 
the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for 
a testimony unto them.’’ The Pentateuchal refers is 
to Lev. 13:49; 14:2ff. It would almost seem as if Jesus 
purposely rae to preclude the modern view that Moses 
had little or nothing to do with the production of the five 
books traditionally assigned to him. 

And what was Christ’s attitude toward the law as a 
whole, which He often called the law of Moses? Did He 
treat it as if it had come from God, and were an essential 
organism in the divine plan of Hea crmetion Yes; He said 
(Matt. 5:17, 18): ‘‘Think not that I came to deaerne the 
law or the prophets; I came not to destroy, but to fulfill. 
Verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass away, 
one jot or one tittle shall in nowise pass from the law, till 
all be accomplished.’’ In Luke 16:17 He puts it still more 


CHRIST’S WITNESS TO OLD TESTAMENT 193 


emphatically: ‘‘But it is easier for heaven and earth to 
pass away than for one tittle of the law to fail.’? Note 
Matt. 7:12: ‘‘All things therefore whatsoever ye would 
that men should do unto you, even so do ye also unto them; 
for this is the law and the prophets.’? When a certain 
lawyer came to Him and said, “Teacher, what shall I do 
to inherit eternal life?’’ Jesus answered, “‘ What is written 
in the law? how readest thou?’’ Jesus had a remarkable 
habit of appealing to the law as the final authority. The 
lawyer than quoted two chief commandments from Deu- 
teronomy and Leviticus, when Jesus made the following 
pregnant statement: ‘‘Thou hast answered right: this do 
and thou shalt live’? (Luke 10:25-28). After His resur- 
rection, in the solemn moments before His ascension to 
the right hand of God, as He was giving to the apostolic 
group His last commission, He said: ‘‘These are my words 
which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that 
all things must needs be fulfilled which are written in 
the law of Moses, and the prophets, and the Psalms con- 
cerning me’’ (Luke 24:44). Verse 45: ‘‘Then opened He 
their mind that they might understand the Scriptures. ’’ 
Can any one read such passages without realizing that our 
Savior accepted the Old Testament as the veritable Word 
of God? In one of His collisions with the angry Jews, 
He said (John 5:39): ‘Ye search the Scriptures, because 
ye think that in them ye have eternal life; and these are 
they which bear witness of me.’’ Rebuking Peter in the 
garden of Gethsemane for using his sword, Jesus said 
(Matt. 26:53, 54): ‘‘Or thinkest thou that I cannot be- 
seech my Father, and He shall even now send me more 
than twelve legions of angels? How then should the Serip- 
tures be fulfilled that this must be?’’? In Mark 14:49 He 
said: “‘But this ig done that the Seriptures might be 
fulfilled.”” On the eross He quoted from the twenty- 
seventh Psalm, when He cried: ‘“My God, my God, why 


194 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


hast Thou forsaken Me?’’ Also in John 19:28: ‘‘After 
this Jesus, knowing that all things are now finished, that 
the Scriptures might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst.’’ In this 
place the reference is evidently to Ps. 69:21. So intent 
was our dying Lord on fulfilling the Scriptures. 

Let us examine Christ’s testimony to other portions of 
the Old Testament which many of the critics have been 
dissecting and whose divine authority their views would 
practically invalidate. According to Luke, Jesus returned, 
after His baptism, to Nazareth, and went into the syna- 
gogue on the Sabbath. The prophecy of Isaiah was handed 
to Him, and He read from the fifty-first chapter. Then 
He said, ‘‘To-day hath this Scripture been fulfilled in your 
ears.’’ Thus we have His witness to the book of Isaiah, 
which has been so much hacked to pieces by the more 
radical critics. In Matt. 13:14ff He quotes from Isa. 6:9, 
10, where it is said, ‘‘By hearing, ye shall hear, and shall 
in nowise understand,’’ ete. In Matt. 15:7ff. He quotes 
as authoritative Isa. 29:13: ‘‘This people honoreth me 
with their lips,’’ ete. There is no hint in His reference 
of a deutero or conglomerate Isaiah. Jesus referred to both 
Elijah and Elisha in Luke 4:25-27 as historical person- 
ages, and also to Naaman, thus placing His endorsement 
on the historical character ef First and Second Kings. 
He made allusion to Elijah in connection with John the 
Baptist. Also at the transfiguration scene He talked with 
both Moses and Elijah, and the subject of their conversa- 
tidn was His death at Jerusalem. 

How numerous are His references to David! Again and 
again He accepted the title ‘‘Son of David’’ (Matt. 9:27; 
15:22; 20:30; 21:9, 15; Mark 10:47; Luke 18:38). He 
justified David for eating the shew-bread (Matt. 12:3ff.; 
Mark 2:22ff.), an incident recorded in 1 Sam, 21 :6, thus 
putting his stamp on another book of the Bible as properly 
historical. In the same passage He refers to Num. 28:9, 


CHRIST’S WITNESS TO OLD TESTAMENT 195 


10, and quotes from Hosea 6:6, adding this book to the 
list which He treats as historical and authoritative. At 
Matt. 22:41-45 He not only admits that He is the son of 
David, but says: ‘‘How then doth David in the Spirit call 
Him Lord, saying, The Lord said unto my Lord,’’ ete. 
What a crushing passage for the criticism of the pulveriz- 
ing kind! The quotation is from Psalm 110:1, and Christ 
declares that David there wrote ‘‘in the Spirit.’? Yet 
many of the critics deny that any of the Psalms were writ- 
ten by David, but were composed during the exile and in 
the Maccabean time. They simply differ from Christ, that 
is all; but that is surely serious enough. 

One of Christ’s most telling references to the Old Testa- 
ment is found at Matt. 21:42: ‘‘Jesus saith unto them, Did 
ye never read in the Scriptures, The stone which the build- 
ers rejected,’’ etc.? The quotation is from Psalm 118 :22. 
Another Psalm endorsed by our Lord as authoritative 
Scripture! Read Matt. 6:29 and Luke 12:27. Here Christ 
compares the lilies of the field to Solomon in all his glory, 
treating the great king as a real, not a mythical, character. 
At another place—Matt. 12:42; Luke 11:31—He refers to 
the visit of the queen of Sheba to Solomon, and then adds, 
‘‘A greater than Solomon is here.’’ Had Jesus known 
anything about the ‘‘assured results’’ of the critics of the 
present day, He would have trodden very lightly when He 
referred to Jonah, or, rather, would have avoided him 
altogether ; but, surprising as it may seem, He referred to 
this runaway prophet with just as much assurance as He 
did to Moses, David, Solomon, Elijah, Elisha and Isaiah. 
His references are extremely significant (Matt. 12:39-41; 
16:4; Luke 11:29, 30). In the first passage He even refers 
to the great crux of the critics; that is, the miracle of the 
sea-monster that swallowed Jonah, and He actually em- 
ploys it as a precursor of His own resurrection. Then He 
bases another of his most vital teachings on the repentance 


196 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


of the Ninevites at the preaching of Jonah. Considering 
the importance, yea, the paramount nature, of the truths 
He desired to impress, it is inconsistent to think that He 
would have made such use of a merely fictitious or mythical | 
character. | 

The book of Daniel has given the critics a vast deal of. 
worriment, and they have handled it so ruthlessly that 
one conservative defender (Sir Robert Anderson), given 
a little too much to derision, has written a book entitled 
‘‘Daniel in the Crities’ Den.’’? One of the critics—one, 
too, who desires to be regarded as evangelical—assigns the 
date of the book of Daniel to 164 B.C., and politely calls 
it “‘a romance.’’ Such was not the view of Christ, who 
based one of His most solemn and urgent injunctions upon 
a prophecy contained in that book (Matt. 24:15-18): 
“When, therefore, ye see the abomination of desolation, 
which was spoken of through Daniel, the prophet, stand- 
ing in the holy place,’’ ete. 

For a moment let us revert to Mark 7. After quoting 
from Isaiah, ‘‘This people honoreth me with their lips,’’ 
etc., Jesus goes on to say: ‘‘Ye leave the commandment 
of God, and hold fast the tradition of men, And He said 
unto them, Full well do ye reject the commandment of 
God, that ye may keep your tradition; for Moses said, 
Honor thy father and thy mother,”’ ete. Then He goes on 
to reprove them for saying ‘‘Corban,’’ and adds this 
decisive statement, ‘‘making void the Word of God by 
your tradition.”’ Now the references here are to Ex. 
20:12; 21:17; Lev. 20:9, and Deut. 5:16, while the first 
sentence refers to Isa. 29:13, All of these Scriptures He 
calls “‘the commandment of God’’ and ‘‘the Word of 
God,’’ and the Pentateuchal passages He attributes to 
Moses. At John 10:35 Jesus says in parenthesis, as if to 
make sure He would not be misunderstood: ‘‘And the 
Word of God cannot be broken.’’ 


CHRIST’S WITNESS TO OLD TESTAMENT 197 


So far as we are able at this time to pursue our study, 
we have examined our Lord’s allusions to the Old Testa- 
ment. Nowhere does He give any hint of a document 
theory, of a natural evolution of religious ideas, of an 
exilic and post-exilic origin of the Hexateuch, Psalms and 
prophecies, of literary forgery and pious imposture in the 
times of Josiah and Ezra; everywhere He treats the Old 
Testament Scriptures as the veritable Word of God and 
the ultimate authority. Strangely enough, Jesus does not 
make a single reference to Josiah, Hilkiah, Nehemiah and 
Ezra—the characters that bulk most largely in the estima- 
tion of the critics, and almost the only ones that they are 
willing to regard as really historical. We wish to make 
no appeal to fear, nor lay any embargo on scholarship and 
investigation; but we do desire to make plain this one 
thine—that the critics of the negative and meditating 
schools should be fully conscious of the seriousness of their 
undertaking when they seek to eliminate or minimize the 
divine element in the Old Testament and attribute it to 
human origins. On the seriousness of the situation we do 
not stand alone. We quote from Dr. Adolph Saphir, whose 
admirable and uplifting book, “‘The Divine Unity of 
Seripture,’’ lies before us: 

*‘It is most important that all Christians should be 
fully convinced in their own minds that the testimony 
which Jesus bears concerning Moses and the prophets is 
decisive. It leaves not a vestige of doubt in the mind of 
any one who acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God. 
It gives us a perfect and incontrovertible conviction that 
the Seriptures of the Old Testament are the Word of 
God. Many doubts, many objections, have been brought 
against this view, and I can only remind you in a few 
words of the tactics of the rationalists who do not believe 
in the divinity of Christ, who attempt to show that our 
Savior accommodated Himself to the prejudices of His 


198 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


contemporaries, and that, although He Himself did not 
believe in the inspiration of the Old Testament, or in the 
existence of Satan, or in those who were possessed of devils 
as really possessed by them; still, adapting Himself to the 
ignorance and weakness of the Jews, and wishing to lead 
them, as it were, into a higher and nobler sphere of 
thought, He argued with them from the things which they 
admitted. Thus a course of action is suggested unworthy 
of the character of an honest man, unworthy of the dignity 
of a prophet, blasphemous as applied to J esus, who is God 
over all blessed forever. Jesus, who never for a moment 
accommodated Himself to the prejudices of the Pharisees 
and Seribes; who, with all the energy of His character, 
protested against the traditions of the elders; who, not 
merely in secret, but in the presence of all the people, 
declared that every plant which His Heavenly Father 
had not planted, however venerable and pious it might 
seem, must be rooted up—how could He for a single 
moment teach what He knew to be untrue?’’ (pp. 52 
and 53.) 

Worth pondering is a quotation from the acute little 
book of Dr. James G. Brookes, ‘‘God Spake All These 
Words,’’ pp. 111, 112: ‘‘If the manner in which the 
writers of the New Testament speak of the Old is a proof 
of its supernatural origin and inerrant inspiration, the 
evidence is greatly strengthened by the reverence our 
Lord Jesus Christ paid to the Book known as the Serip- 
tures. He never gave a hint that they contain ‘errors,’ 
‘mistakes,’ ‘myths,’ ‘legends,’ ‘contradicitions,’ or ‘for- 
geries,’ and He never discovered that some of the books 
were not written by the men whose names they bear. To 
Him it is evident that ‘God spake all these words,’ ”? 
Referring to the use Christ made of the Scriptures in the 
temptation after His baptism, Dr. Brookes adds: ‘‘It is 
a striking fact that the writings from which our Lord 


CHRIST’S WITNESS TO OLD TESTAMENT 199 


quotes as His sufficient panoply are taken from the book 
of Deuteronomy, as if He would shield it from the in- 
famous accusation of Higher Criticism, which pronounces 
it a forgery. ‘Then the devil leaveth Him, and, behold, 
angels came and ministered unto Him.’ He had honored 
the Word, and angels honored Him.”’ 

Dr. John Smith, of Edinburgh, has written a scholarly 
and cogently reasoned book, entitled ‘‘The Integrity of 
*Scripture,’’ in which he deals exclusively with the critical 
hypotheses. We have space for only a brief quotation from 
his work (pp. 107, 108): ‘‘The point is: Did Jesus 
fundamentally misconceive the character of the Old Testa- 
ment? Did He take for a creative revelation what was a 
slow and ordinary human growth? Did He take for 
prophetic insight of the patriarch Abraham words which 
some imaginative writer put into the mouth of a geo- 
graphic myth, whom he first made a historical character? 
Did He take, for authoritative laws given by Moses, late 
codifications of Jewish common law wrought up with 
audacious fictions? Did the idea of a divine norm in the 
law which would yet receive an ideal fulfillment, and that 
other of the Scriptures governed in all its parts by a fore- 
seeing mind, and pointing in all parts to Himself—did all 
that live as only a dream and illusion in His own mind? 
If these things were so; if all that is involved in these 
admissions were true; if we could for a moment believe 
them true—then what disparagement would fall on the 
judgment and insight of the Son of God! If He blundered 
regarding the preparatory dispensation—our pen trembles 
to write the words—may He not have misjudged regarding 
the platform on which He Himself stood ?’’ 

These are not the words of one who is seeking to 
frighten his protagonists, but of one who has calmly, 
critically and judicially gone over the whole question, has 
come to assured conclusions, and therefore feels a solemn 


200 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


responsibility resting upon him to point out the gserious- 
ness of the positions taken by the critics, 

When we started out in this study we meant to collate 
the full testimony of the New Testament to the Old, but 
our thesis has perhaps already grown to too great a length. 
Some other time we may take up the subject again, and 
point out the deference shown by the evangelists and 
apostles to the Old Testament. Suffice it to Say that, ac- 
cording to the investigations of Dr. James G. Brookes, 
the New Testament quotes from the Old 320 times, besides 
alluding to it almost as often. ‘‘Genesis is quoted 19 times, 
and the quotations appear in nine New Testament books; 
Exodus is quoted 24. times, and the quotations appear in 
12 New Testament books; Leviticus is quoted 12 times, 
and the quotations appear in nine New Testament books; 
Numbers is quoted twice, besides many plain allusions to 
its incidents as historically true, for example, 1 Cor. 10: 
6-10, and these appear in nine New Testament books; 
Deuteronomy is quoted 26 times, and these appear in 13 
New Testament books; Isaiah is quoted 50 times in 11 
New Testament books; Proverbs six times in six New 
Testament books; Zachariah six times in four New Testa- 
ment books; and other books of the Old Testament are 
quoted as from God.’’ 

After the foregoing was written, we had the opportunity 
of reading Dr. Franklin Johnson’s scholarly book, en- 
titled ‘‘The Quotations of the New Testament from the 
Old,’’ and we cannot refrain from calling special attention 
to this work. For minute and thorough-going scholarship 
it is equal to anything that has been published on this 
subject, and is a complete refutation of the erities who 
are so given over to finding occasions of stumbling in the 
Bible. Here are noted the quotations that were taken from 
the Hebrew Bible and the Septuagint, and in each ease 
the reason is given, and in each case, too, it is shown that 


CHRIST’S WITNESS TO OLD TESTAMENT 201 


the New Testament writer or speaker was justified in his 
manner of quotation. Very many examples are given from 
classical and modern literature to show that other writers 
have made quotations and citations in precisely the same 
way as the New Testament writers did, showing that the 
Bible is constructed on the same literarry principles as 
are all the great literatures of the world. Dr. Johnson 
also upholds the inspiration and divine authority of the 
Scriptures. He answers most effectively the criticisms of 
Kuenen, Wellhausen and Toy. 

This excellent orthodox work proves two things very 
clearly: 1. That the criticism of the pulverizers can be 
successfully answered; 2. That not all the scholarship of 
the day has gone over to the side of the liberalistic and 
pruning Biblical criticism. 


CHAPTER X 
CHRIST’S AUTHORITY THROUGHOUT THE NEW TESTAMENT 


Very often to-day we hear the ery, ‘‘Back to Christ.’’ 
When by this demand is meant that we should go back 
to the spirit and teaching of Christ and His inspired 
apostles in the entire New Testament, so that we may im- 
bibe and practice them more and more, all of us will gladly 
assent. Every true reformation in the history of the 
Christian Church has been achieved by going back to the 
pure teachings of the New Testament. 

However, the phrase, ‘‘Back to Christ,’’ as it is cur- 
rently used by a certain class of theologians, is not em- 
ployed in the above sense. By some it means a disparage- 
ment, if not a positive rejection, of all the creeds of the 
Church, not excepting those that are called ecumenical. 
It is not our purpose in this article to deal with this 
Specious use of the expression; therefore we shall stop 
merely to say that the theologian who ignores all the 
Christian thinking of the past, and especially that which 
has been erystalized in the great confessions of the Church 
at the most strategic épochs in the history of the Christian 
faith, surely does not prove himself a well-balanced and 
judicial thinker, but rather one who is surfeited with the 
sense of his own importance and ability; one who ‘‘thinks 
more highly of himself than he ought to think.’’ As well 
might the botanist or geologist of to-day declare that he 
would go to the plants and rocks for himself, and would 
disregard all that previous thinkers and investigators had 

202 


CHRIST’S AUTHORITY 203 


accomplished in those special sciences. While we eannot 
stop to dilate on this attitude of mind toward. the past, 
yet we must add that, if you will follow the statements of 
the liberalist of the foregoing type, you will find, as a rule, 
that he has not deeply and thoroughly studied the theology 
of the creeds he belittles, nor compared them diligently with 
the teachings of Scripture.* Moreover, you will almost 
always discover ere long that he cherishes lax views of 
the inspiration of the Bible. 

A second class of writers—and with these we shall deal 
in this chapter—whose slogan is, ‘‘ Back to Christ,’’? mean 
to set Christ’s teachings as found in the gospels, especially 
the synoptics, in opposition to the teachings of His apostles 
in the Acts and the Epistles. That is, they mean, ‘‘Let 
us get back to Christ from Paul and the rest of the 
apostles.’’ These men tell us that all of the New Testa- 
ment that follows the gospels is the result of reflection 
and speculation after Christ’s resurrection and ascension. 
Therefore much of it is merely human; it belongs to a 
theologizing period; it cannot therefore be placed on a par 
with the simple teaching of Jesus in the gospels, particu- 
larly the synoptics. Several members of the faculty of the 
Divinity School of the University of Chicago have been 
advocates of this view; so much so, indeed, that Dr. Wil- 
liam Cleaver Wilkinson has come out in a pungent and in- 
ecisive book against them—a book that, barring a little too 
much rhetoric, is to be commended as a most crushing ar- 
gument against the specious position taken by the liber- 
alists. The title of his book is, ‘‘Paul and the Revolt 
Against Him.’’ We shall not follow Dr. Wilkinson in his 


* For powerful defenses of the ecumenical creeds on the specified 
doctrines we would refer the reader to the following works: Canon 
Gore: ‘‘The Incarnation of the Son of the Son of God’’; H. H. 
Revton: *‘A Study in Christology’’; L. G. Myine: ‘‘The Holy 
Trinity’’; O. C. Quick: ‘‘ Modern Philosophy and the Incarnation. ’? 
For a more general vindication of the orthodox credal doctrines, see 
Mr. QUicK’s stimulating book, ‘‘ Essays in Orthodoxy.’’ 


204 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


masterly arguments—though that would be well worth 
while—but shall look at the question as it appears to us. 

Our main proposition is that Christ’s teachings were 
not completed in the gospels; that He purposely left many 
things of vital importance to be revealed by Him through 
the Holy Spirit to His apostles, whom He inspired and 
equipped for this very purpose; and therefore the teach- 
ings in the Acts, the Epistles and the Revelation are just 
as much His own teachings and just as authoritative as 
are the teachings recorded in the gospels. Let us see 
whether this is not the clear doctrine taught in the New 
Testament. 

First, what do the synoptics themselves teach, or, rather, 
what does Jesus teach in them? In Matt. 28:18-20 we 
read: ‘‘And Jesus came unto them and spake unto them, 
saying, All authority hath been given unto me in heaven 
and on earth. Go ye, therefore, and make disciples of all 
the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and 
of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; teaching them to ob- 
serve all things whatsoever I commanded you: and, lo, I 
am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.’’ 
What is the plain doctrine of this great commission? Note 
the logical force of the ‘‘therefore’’ which we have itali- 
cized. Because Christ had received all authority, there- 
fore He commissioned His apostles go forth and teach His 
doctrines. And if they actually taught by His authority, 
as He bade them, would not their teaching be His teach- 
ing, and would it not be just as authoritative as that which 
fell from His lips during His humiliation? And what 
does He command them to teach? Their own speculations? 
No, indeed! but ‘‘all things whatsoever I have commanded 
you.’’ Then He graciously promises that He will be with 
them alway. And why? Surely for the purpose of in- 
spiring them and making them strong and inerrant in 
their proclamation. Now if the apostles obeyed His com- 


CHRIST’S AUTHORITY 205 


mission, they must have taught nothing contrary to His 
instructions to them during His earthly ministry. And 
where do we have the record of what they did and taught 
under this divine influence? Only in the Acts, the Epis- 
tles, and the Revelation. 

Our next citation is Mark 16:15, 16: ‘‘And He said 
unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gos- 
pel to the whole creation. He that believeth and is bap- 
tized shall be saved; he that disbelieveth shall be con- 
demned.’’ Here again Jesus indicates that the preaching 
of the apostles was to be authoritative, even on a par with 
His own preaching, for the salvation of those who heard 
the message was conditioned on their acceptance of it. 
Christ never made a stronger claim than that for His own 
personal teaching during His earthly ministry. This con- 
tention is further emphasized by the concluding verses of 
the same gospel: ‘‘So then the Lord Jesus, after He had 
spoken unto them, was received up into heaven, and sat 
down at the right hand of God. And they went forth 
and preached everywhere, the Lord working with. them, and 
confirning the word by the signs that followed. Amen.”’ 
Does not that statement make the preaching of the apostles 
the authorized preaching of the Lord Jesus Himself ? 

The following is Luke’s statement. of the last commis- 
sion (24:44-48): ‘‘And He said unto them, These are my 
words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, 
that all things must needs be fulfilled, which are written 
in the law of Moses, and the prophets, and the Psalms 
concerning me. Then opened He their mind that they 
might understand the Scriptures. ... Ye are witnesses 
of these things. And behold, I send forth the promise of 
my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city until ye be 
clothed with power from on high.’’ Here even the au- 
thority of the Father is added to that of Christ, enduing 


206 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


the apostles. This promise was made good on the day of 
Pentecost. 

Next note the teaching of Christ in the gospel accord- 
ing to St. John; it will be seen to be quite as relevant. 
How significant are all Christ’s promises of the Holy Spirit 
to His apostles! And He promised not only the Spirit, 
but also His own presence and that of the Father. John 
14:15-18: ‘‘If ye love me, ye will keep my commandments. 
And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another 
Comforter, that He may be with you forever, even the 
Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, for it 
beholdeth Him not, neither knoweth Him; ye know Hin, 
for He abideth with you and shall be in you. I will not 
leave you desolate; I will come to you.’’ No less sig- 
nificant is John 14:25, 26: ‘‘These things have I spoken 
unto you while yet abiding with you; but the Comforter, 
even the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my 
name, He shall teach you all things, and bring to your re- 
membrance all that I said unto you.’’ From this we may 
conclude that, if Christ afterward made good His prom- 
ise, the Holy Spirit brought back to the memory of the 
apostles many of Christ’s teachings that they would have 
otherwise forgotten. Would not this teaching, thus in- 
errantly recalled to their remembrance by the Holy Spirit, 
be in deed and in truth the real teaching of Christ Him- 
self, the very doctrine that fell from His own lips? In 
John 15:26 the Holy Spirit is again called the “‘Spirit of 
truth,’’ and the statement is added that He will proceed 
‘‘from the Father,’’ and ‘‘He shall bear witness of me.’’ 
The only question is, Are we willing to accept the subse- 
quent witness of the Holy Ghost as true? Observe how 
often Jesus calls the Holy Ghost ‘‘the Spirit of truth.’’ 

A decisive passage for the evangelical believer is John 
16:12-15: ‘“‘I have many things to say unto you, but ye 
cannot bear them now. Howbeit, when He, the Spirit of 


CHRIST’S AUTHORITY 207 


truth is come, He will guide you into all truth; for He 
Shall not speak from Himself; but what things soever He 
Shall hear, these shall He speak: and He shall declare 
unto you the things that are to come. He shall glorify 
me, for He shall take of mine and declare it unto you. 
All things whatsoever the Father hath are mine: there- 
fore I said, He shall take of mine and declare it unto you.’’ 
This sublime passage proves that Jesus purposely with- 
held certain truths from His apostles until they were en- 
dued and enlightened by the Holy Spirit so that they 
could bear them. Thus our Lord Himself teaches that 
He had no intention of completing His doctrines while 
He was here in His earthly state, but expressly left many 
things for subsequent revelation. Where do we have this 
supplemental teaching if not in the writings of the apostles? 
If we do not have them there, we do not have them at 
all; and that would empty Christ’s promise of all content 
and leave it unfulfilled. Therefore to discredit the doc- 
trines of the apostles is to discredit Christ’s own teaching 
and promise. How can the liberalists avoid the fatal con- 
clusion ? 

John 17 ought to be read in full. It records our Re- 
deemer’s intercessory prayer for His apostles. Again and 
again He prays for them. Verse 15: ‘‘I pray not that 
thou shouldest take them from the world, but that thou 
shouldest keep them from the evil one.’? How vital are 
verses 17-21: ‘‘Sanctify them in thy truth; thy word is 
truth. As thou didst send me into the world, even so 
sent I them into the world. And for their sakes I sane- 
tify myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified 
in truth. Neither for these only do I pray, but for them 
also that believe on me through their word; that they may 
all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me and I in thee, 
that they also may be in us; that the world may believe 
that thou didst send me.’’ If this does not mean a special 


208 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


enduement and inspiration of our Lord’s apostles, the 
words are meaningless. 

So much, then, for Christ’s own teaching in the gos- 
pels. When and where did His gracious promises receive 
their fulfillment? We turn to the Acts of the Apostles, 
and find that, if we take the simple New Testament record 
just as it is, without prejudice or subjective theories, the 
whole teaching is beautifully consistent and_self-inter- 
preting. In Acts 1:1,2 we read: ‘‘The former treatise 
I made, O Theophilus, concerning all that Jesus began 
both to do and to teach, until the day in which He was re- 
ceived up, after that He had given commandment through 
the Holy Spirit unto the apostles whom He had chosen.”’ 
This’ agrees perfectly with John 16:12-15, where Jesus 
said, ‘I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot 
bear them now’’; therefore Luke says that Jesus, during 
His earthly life, simply ‘‘began’’ to do and to teach— 
that is, He did not complete His work or His doctrine, 
but laid down only the fundamental principles, the essen- 
tial germs of truth, and then inspired His holy apostles 
to conserve and develop them. Then in the subsequent 
verses (4, 5, 8) He bids them tarry at J erusalem, prom- 
ises them the baptism of the Holy Spirit, the enduement 
of power, and adds: °‘‘Ye shall be my witnesses both in 
Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and unto the 
uttermost part of the earth.’’ Now the question is whether 
Jesus fulfilled His promise to be with them (Matt 28 :20), 
and to guide them by His Spirit into all truth (John 
16:13). The apostles returned to J erusalem, and contin- 
ued in prayer in the sacred ‘‘upper room.’’ It being 
necessary to select an apostle to fill the place of J udas, the 
company prayed thus: ‘‘Thou, Lord, who knowest the 
hearts of all men, show of these two the one whom thou 
hast chosen,’’ ete.; and in answer to their prayer, the 
lot fell upon Matthias. From this we see that Jesus be- 


CHRIST’S AUTHORITY 209 


gan at once to redeem His promise of divine guidance. 

Acts 2 recites the wonderful event of Pentecost, when 
the promise of Christ was literally fulfilled—the Holy 
Spirit was given and the apostles were baptized with 
power. Now how does Peter, who was the chief spokes- 
man on that occasion, account for the outpouring of the 
Holy Spirit? We find it in Acts 2:32,33: ‘‘This Jesus 
did God raise up, whereof we are witnesses. Being there- 
fore by the right hand of God exalted, and having re- 
ceived of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He 
hath poured forth this which ye see and hear.’’ The ante- 
cedent of ‘‘He’’ is Christ, and therefore it was Christ 
Himself who poured out the Holy Spirit on that day. 
Would not the work of the glorified and exalted Christ, 
performed through the Holy Spirit, be just as authorita- 
tive as what He did and said during Hig kenosis and hu- 
miliation ? 

A careful reading of the book of Acts will convince any 
one that the apostles and their chosen helpers always 
spoke and acted as if they were in the presence of Christ 
and were guided by the Holy Spirit. For instance, Peter 
disclaimed having healed the lame man by his own power, 
but declared that the miracle had taken place through 
faith in the name of Jesus. When Stephen had concluded 
his wonderful address, he saw heaven opened and the Son 
of Man standing on the right hand of God—not sitting, 
for He was then in the attitude of one who had risen to 
help and welcome His faithful witness. Paul, as well as 
the rest of the apostles, claims the same enduement directly 
from the exalted Jesus. 

In the opening verses of both of his epistles Peter calls 
himself ‘‘an apostle of Jesus Christ,’’ and throughout he 
speaks in a tone of authority that betokens the conscious- 
ness of divine direction. In 2 Pet. 3:1,2 he says: ‘This 
is now, beloved, the second epistle that I write unto you; 


210 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


and in both of them I stir up your sincere .iind by put- 
ting you in remembrance; that ye should remember the 
words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, 
and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through 
your apostles’’; a passage that invests the apostles with 
an authority equal to that of the prophets. The apostle 
John indicates that he writes by divine authority, or at 
least by positive and certain knowledge (see 1 John 1:1-5). 
In the Apocalypse he claims to have direct communion 
with the exalted Redeemer and to receive dictation from 
Him as to what he shall write to the seven churches. 

It might be said that the apostle Paul is almost per- 
sona non grata to the liberalizing theologians. They cen- 
sure him for having ‘‘theologized’’ about Christ, for having 
developed a system of theology by means of his specula- 
tions. Thus they think he has interjected confusion into 
the simplicity of Christ’s teachings. He has added to it 
a well-wrought-out theology of the person of Christ, of 
the vicarious atonement, of justification by faith alone, 
salvation by grace, the resurrection of the body, and a good 
many other doctrines. Such a determinate doctrinal sys- 
tem the liberalists do not like. A good many of these doc- 
trines their rationalistic temper cannot abide. So they 
look back to the gospels, and do not find these doctrines 
so fully developed there; from which they leap to the con- 
clusion that Paul was a speculative theologian, a dog- 
matician, who unfolded a system that finds no warrant in 
Christ’s teaching. Little wonder that these men do not 
relish the Pauline theology. They have almost as little 
regard for him as they have for the definite theology of 
the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds. A theology of tenuity 
is much more to their liking. 

But before we consent to have Paul discredited and 
east overboard, we would better look into the status of 
his case. Of course, if we choose to throw away the evan- 


CHRIST’S AUTHORITY 211 


gelical records, or manipulate them according to precon- 
ceived notions, neither Paul nor Christ can say an authori- 
tative word for us. However, it is not our purpose to go 
into the question of the criticism of the gospels and epis- 
tles, but simply to show what they teach regarding Paul’s © 
relation to Christ. There will be an advantage in this 
method, for if we can make our contention good, it will 
show that the quarrel of the liberalists is with the evan- 
gelical records, not with orthodox theologians. 

The New Testament witness is clear that Paul received 
his commission as an apostle directly from the exalted 
Christ. Luke tells the story of Paul’s conversion in Acts 
9:1-19; Paul tells it himself in Acts 22:3-21, and again 
in Acts 26:9-23. He lays claim to the apostleship—Rom. 
1:4, 5: ‘‘KEven Jesus Christ, through whom we received 
grace and apostleship’’; 1 Cor. 9:2: ‘“‘If to others lam not 
an apostle, yet at least I am to you; for the seal of mine 
apostleship are ye in the Lord’’; Gal. 2:8: ‘‘For He that 
wrought for Peter unto the apostleship of the cireum- 
cision wrought for me also unto the Gentiles.’’ In almost, 
if not quite, all of his epistles he calls himself an apostle, 
e. g., Rom. 1:1, 1 Cor. 1:1, Gal. 1:1, and so on with the 
rest. He contends earnestly for his apostleship against all 
gainsayers. 1 Cor. 9:1: ‘‘Am I not free? am [ not an 
apostle? have I not seen Jesus our Lord? are not ye my 
work in the Lord?’’ 2 Cor. 12:11,12: ‘‘For in nothing 
was I behind the very chiefest apostles, though I am noth- 
ing. Truly the signs of an apostle were wrought among 
you in all patience, by signs and wonders and mighty 
works.’’ Rom, 11:13: ‘‘Inasmuch then as I am an apostle 
of Gentiles, I glorify my ministry.’’ He contends that he 
received his call from God (Gal. 1:15-17). It was God 
who had ‘‘separated him,’’ even from his mother’s womb, 
to ‘‘reveal His Son in’’ him, that he might ‘‘ preach Him 
among the Gentiles.’’ Thus called, he says: ‘‘Straightway 


212 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


I conferred not with flesh and blood, neither went I up te 
Jerusalem to them that were apostles before me.’’ He tells 
plainly his authority for the gospel (Gal, 1:11, 12): **For 
I make known to you, brethren, as touching the gospel 
which was preached by me, that it is not after man. For 
neither did I receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but 
it came to me through revelation of Jesus Christ.’? He 
bears similar testimony in 1 Cor. 11:23: ‘‘For I received 
of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you,’’ ete. 
He asserts that he was ‘‘called to be an apostle of Jesus 
Christ through the will of God.’’ He claims to have the 
Spirit of God (1 Cor. 7:40). Even if an angel from 
heaven should come to preach another gospel, Paul pro- 
nounces him anathema (Gal. 1:8). Another of his claims 
was that Christ lived in him (Gal. 2:20) ; also that the love 
of Christ constrained him (2 Cor. 5:14). 

Now the argument stands thus: Was Paul either an 
imposter or a fanatic? There is no internal nor exter- 
nal proof that he was either—none whatever; on the con- 
trary, every circumstance proves that he was both sin- 
cere and well-balanced; that he spoke forth ‘‘the words of 
truth and soberness’’ (Acts 26:25). Then he must have 
spoken the sober truth when he contended that he had re- 
ceived his call and commission directly from the elorified 
Christ, who met him on the way to Damascus, and ever 
afterward was present with him. Now, if he received the 
vocation to the apostleship from the glorified Christ, we 
beg to know why sucha call would not be just as authori- 
tative as it would have been had he received it from the 
Master in the days of His humiliation? And if Christ’s 
promise that the Holy Spirit would lead His apostles into 
all needed truth was fulfilled by our Lord (and this promise 
surely would pertain to the greatest of all His apostles), 
we fail to see why the doctrines of Paul would not be the 
veritable doctrines of our divine Lord and Saviour. Does 


CHRIST’S AUTHORITY 213 


Christ have less authority in His glorified state than He 
had during the kenosis? In the days of His humiliation 
He did not set up the claim of having all authority in 
heaven and on earth; it was only after His resurrection 
and just before His ascension that He made this claim. 
Moreover, it is a strange mode of interpretation which 
attributes more authority to Christ’s words while He was 
here on earth than to the inspiration of His Spirit after 
He had ascended to the right hand of Omnipotence. 
While Christ was here in the earthly state He did not 
confer great power on His apostles; indeed, they were a 
weak company of men; one of them denied Him; all of 
them forsook Him and fled; they could scarcely be con- 
vinced of His resurrection from the dead; they were full 
of doubts and fears. Only after they had seen Him alive 
a number of times, and had witnessed His ascension into 
the heavens, were their doubts allayed; only when the 
exalted Christ had poured His Spirit upon them, did the 
last vestige of doubt and timidity disappear; only then 
were they clothed with a superhuman power that made 
them steadfast in all danger and trial. Thus endued, they 
were able to do even greater works than their Lord had 
done in the days of His self-limitation (John 14:12), 

And, by the way, it will be worth while to pause a mo- 
ment to examine the passage last cited, as it will support 
our present view. Here Jesus said: ‘‘Verily, verily, I 
say unto you, he that believeth in me, the works that I do 
shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do.’’ 
And why? ‘‘Because I go to the Father; and whatsoever 
ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father 
may be glorified in the Son.’’ Note that the very reason 
assigned for the greater ability of believers is that Christ 
will ascend to the Father to be clothed with divine power, 
and thus enabled to do all that His disciples may ask in 
His name, Why then was not Paul’s vocation as valid and 


214 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


authoritative as that of the rest of the apostles? Why, too, 
were not the post-ascension commissions and enduements 
of the whole apostolic college completely authoritative? 

If it should be said that Paul never met Christ person- 
ally while He was here on earth, and never heard any of 
His instructions from His own lips, our reply is, If his 
own story of his conversion on the Damaseus road is true, 
he met the ascended and glorified Christ, and received his 
apostolic authority from Him. This would more than com- 
pensate for his failing to know Christ ‘‘according to the 
flesh.”’ ; 

It should be remembered that some of Paul’s letters 
were written before the gospels were composed. It is 
not likely that he had any of our present gospels be- 
fore him when he wrote these letters. His sources of 
information relative to Christ must, therefore, have been 
Just as reliable as those of Mark and Luke. It is strange, 
therefore, that some of the liberalists, who regard the 
gospels of Mark and Luke as authoritative for Christ’s 
teaching, should in the same breath discredit Paul’s teach- 
Ing. What were Paul’s sources? First, the Old Testament 
prophecies, to which he had the same access as the evan- 
gelists; second, the reports of the immediate disciples of 
Christ ; third, direct revelations from the exalted Messiah. 
All of these combined would make Paul an authority for 
Christ, and just as much of an authority, indeed, as the 
writers of the gospels, whether apostles or only disciples. 

It may be asked how ‘it oceurs that Paul carries the doc- 
trines of salvation so much further than do the gospels; 
that he presents a fuller doctrine of grace, faith, justifi- 
cation, atonement, and of the divine-human person of our 
Lord Jesus Christ. In reply we would say, we have studied 
the writings of Paul for many years, and are eonvinced 
from the internal evidences that they are more than merely 
human compositions; that such depth and elevation of 


CHRIST’S AUTHORITY 215 


thought are beyond unaided human acumen; that, there- 
fore, the only adequate explanation is that which Paul 
himself assigns, namely, that he received his vocation from 
God in Christ, and wrote under the inspiration of the Holy 
Spirit. Indeed, if we did not have the teachings of the 
apostles and the inspired history of their works after the 
ascension of Christ, we should have a very meager and in- 
determinate body of doctrines, and the way of salvation 
itself would be obscure. However, with the completed 
revelation, the way of life is made plain even for way- 
faring men, and we also have a sufficiently full and definite 
body of doctrine to satisfy those who are interested in 
scientific theology. 

Truly enough, all the precious doctrines of our reli- 
gion are found in seminal form in the gospels; but how 
nobly Jesus led His apostles by His inspiring Spirit to 
develop those doctrines! Take the doctrine of Christ’s 
atoning sacrifice; if we did not have the imspired de- 
velopment by Paul and Peter and John (Rom, 3:25,26, 
1 Pet. 3:18, 1 John 2:1, 2), we should have a meager and 
unsatisfying idea of the meaning of Christ’s passion and 
death. With the teaching of the whole Bible before us, 
however, we are able to formulate a doctrine of atone- 
ment that satisfies the heart, wins the affections, and ful- 
fills all the ethical demands of the enlightened intellect 
and conscience. The same is true of Christology: the 
synoptics set Christ forth as the Son of Man; John’s gos- 
pel exhibits Him as the eternal Logos and the Son of 
God; while Paul, Peter and John, besides portraying Him 
in His humiliation, also depict Him in His exaltation at 
the right hand of power and glory, where He is filled with 
all the fullness of God. How meager would be our doc- 
trine of Pneumatology if the Acts and the Epistles had 
never been written! Without Paul our conceptions of 
grace and faith would be so defective that we doubt 


216 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


whether the doctrine of salvation would have endured 
throughout the centuries. Christ taught a very meager 
Keclesiology; only twice in the gospels does He mention 
the Church (Matt. 16:18 and 18:17). Can any one be- 
lieve that this is all He ever meant to teach respecting that 
divinely instituted organization of which He Himself de- 
clares that ‘‘the gates of hell shall not prevail against it?”? 
And where do we find the doctrine and mission of the 
Church developed and clearly set forth? In the Acts, the 
Epistles and the Revelation. As to the last things—Hscha- 
tology—we need all the invigorating teaching of Paul, Peter 
and John in their epistles and the Revelation, to make the 
future life sufficiently attractive to be a real incentive for 
following Christ in times of great tribulation. 

While we desire to be generous, yet the truth compels 
us to say that, whenever you find a theologian who re- 
pudiates the development of the doctrine by Paul, Peter and 
John and the history of the Church recited by Luke in 
the Acts, all you need to do is to push him to define his 
doctrinal system, and you will find that it is very misty 
and indeterminate; that he does not accept the orthodox 
and confessional doctrines of the Trinity, the person of 
Christ, the substitutional atonement, justification by faith 
alone and salvation sola gratia; while on the doctrine of 
Biblical inspiration he is likely to be far off to one side. 
Many of the liberalistic theologians do not accept even the 
Synoptic gospels in their entirety, but slice away such por- 
tions as do not comport with their critical theories and 
doctrinal preconceptions. 

Another matter is worthy of comment, Some investi- 
gators make a mistake, we think, in their efforts to work 
out a complete system of Christian doctrine and ethics 
from the gospels alone. If Jesus had meant to complete 
His system of redemptive truth during His earthly life, 
such efforts might succeed; but we know from Hig own 


2 - 5 
EE a a 


CHRIST’S AUTHORITY 217 
©. 


express Statements that He simply aimed to lay the foun- 
dation in teaching, example and atonement, and then, af- 
ter His ascension and glorification, endue His apostles 
with the Holy Spirit, who should direct them in erecting 
the superstructure of truth and salvation, This is evi- 
dent from His last commissions, from Hig promise of the 
Spirit who would lead His apostles into all truth and en- 
due them with power, from the actual history of the 
Church after our Lord’s ascension, and from the many 
truths added to the gospels by the apostles themselves 
under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, it is 
narrow and one-sided to try to work out a complete the- 
ology and ethic from the gospels alone. It is not fair to 
Christ Himself who told His apostles expressly that the 
Holy Spirit would lead them into further truth, An ex- 
cellent writer (evangelical, too, as far as we can judge) 
has, we think, made this mistake in a recent book deal- 
ing with the ethics and social teaching of Christ, By a 
somewhat labored effort he seems to make out his case— 
that is, he proves that the teachings of Christ in the gos- 
pels are the real solvent of all ethical and social prob- 
lems. However, how much easier would have been his 
task, and how much clearer a light he might have thrown 
upon life’s problems, if he had used the whole New Testa- 
ment! Let us illustrate our viewpoint. If you were to 
consider Christ’s teaching in the gospels alone as to the 
treatment of the poor, there would be danger of pauper- 
izing many people, and encouraging in them a spirit of 
dependence; but co-ordinate it with Paul’s teaching 
(which is also Christ’s teaching, for Paul was inspired), 
and you will see how every danger is avoided: ‘‘If any man 
will not work, neither shall he eat’’ (2 Thess. 3:10); 
‘‘For each man shall bear his own burden’’ (Gal. 6:5). 
Again, observe how Paul completes and balances the 
teachings of the gospels regarding the relations ef mas- 


218 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


¥ 

ters and servants, husbands and wives, parents and chil- 
dren. Yes, we need the whole New Testament—the whole 
Bible, indeed—to give us a complete and satisfying con- 
ception of doctrine, ethics and practical Christian living. 

In the interests of evangelical truth, it 1s time to call 
a halt to the liberalistic effort to ‘‘rob Paul to pay Christ,’’ 
as some one has tersely put it; for Paul, having received 
his commission from the exalted Christ and being endued 
with His Spirit, was in every way fully as competent to 
represent His Lord as were Mark and Luke and even 
Matthew and John. If we are to know the whole teach- 
ing of Jesus, we must study the whole New Testament; 
yes, and the Old Testament as well; for Christ was the 
inspiring personality even in the preparatory dispensa- 
tion; such is the declaration of an inspired apostle (1 Pet. 
1:10,11); ‘‘Concerning which salvation the prophets 
sought and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace 
which should come unto you; searching what time or what 
manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them 
did point unto, when it testified beforehand the sufferings 
of Christ, and the glories which should follow them.’’ 
Thus the whole Bible is an organism, a divine unity; all 
inspired by the same Spirit of our Lord and Redeemer; 
and in order to formulate a complete and satisfying the- 
ology, a complete and satisfying system of ethics, a complete 
and satisfying scheme of redeeming grace through Christ, 
we must accept the hallowed teaching of the whole sacred 
Volume. 


CHAPTER XI 
THE BIBLE A BOOK OF RELIGION—AND MORB 


AT a recent convention we listened to a rather striking 
address by a professor in a theological Seminary. He said 
many good things, some of them in an original way. How- 
ever, he said some things that raised question-marks in our 
mind. Were they as careful, exact and discriminating as 
they should have been? Did he say all he meant to imply, 
or was there at least some ‘‘camouflage’’ in hig remarks? 
There seemed to us to be a disposition to hint at things 
rather than to speak them right out with entire frankness. 
He evidently did not want to go too far, so that, if you 
should interrogate him, he could easily beat a retreat and 
exclaim, deprecatingly: ‘‘Oh! I did not mean to imply 
the conclusions you have drawn from my remarks. You 
must not be too ready to make inferences. Pray do not 
be a heresy hunter!’’ 

You see how it is, reader. The obscurantist always 
knows just about how far to go to keep from committing 
himself. If you try to corner him, and ask him to say 
precisely what he means, he will warn you not to appoint 
yourself a guardian over other people’s theology. But he 
will always do one of two things—either stir up more dust 
to cloud the issue, or else quickly declare that he ig ** per- 
fectly evangelical,’’ and that you mistook his meaning. 
But we think it better, braver and honester not to make 
any dark hints, and thus make room for inferences, mis- 
taken er otherwise, but to say frankly just what you be- 

219 


220 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


lieve and what you do not believe. Oh, this thing of hav- 
ing ‘‘something up your sleeve’’ which you cannot bring 
out into the open—how we dislike it! 

But to come to the point. Our speaker declared over 
and over and over again that ‘‘the Bible is a book of re- 
ligion, not of physical science.’’ More than once he made 
a statement something like this: ‘‘If I want to know some- 
thing about religion, I go to the Bible. If I want to know 
something about science, I go to a text-book on astronomy, 
geology, biology or physics.’’ Then he used an illustra- 
tion: ‘‘Here is my watch,’’ holding out a fine gold time- 
keeper; ‘‘if I want to know the time, I look at 7t; but if 
I want to know what the temperature is, I do not look at 
my watch; I consult a thermometer.’’ Over and over he 
rang the changes on his illustration, which he evidently 
took to be very apt. At one point he said that, when the 
young student begins to study astronomy, he questions the 
miracle of the sun and moon standing still for Joshua;, 
and then the speaker dropped the matter without any 
attempt at an explanation. Why did he suggest the diffi- 
culty at all?* Our orator also made the assertion that 
‘“the Bible was not intended to teach history, but religion 
only.’’ 

Now-a-days it behooves defenders of the faith to ex- 
amine and analyze every statement. So many assertions 
are made that do not say precisely what is meant, but that 
carry a dangerous implication. So let us look judicially 
at this statement that,‘‘the Bible was not intended to teach 
science.’’ First, who has ever held that such was its main 
purpose? Where is the statement made in any of our 
evangelical books and periodicals that the Bible was written 
primarily to teach science? We cannot remember that, 

* By the way, not to do as the speaker did, we refer the reader to 
Dr. Robert Dick Wilson’s fine article on this subject—that is, the 


above-named miracle—in the January, 1918, number of The Princeton 
Theological Review. 


THE BIBLE A BOOK OF RELIGION 221 


in all the multitude of writings we have examined, we 
have ever seen the asseveration made that the Bible was 
written to teach science. So why do some men to-day 
want to lay such a tremendous emphasis on the statement. 
Why emphasize a platitude? Why put such an ictus on a 
truth that no one has ever denied? There is nothing new 
or original about the statement. It does not even have 
the merit of being a smart epigram, and it throws no light 
on the problems of the Bible. 

Therefore we must know what is the ulterior motive in 
reiterating such a commonplace statement. Is there some 
*fcamouflage’’ about it, or is there not? Is not this what 
is meant by the repeaters of the saying, ‘‘The Bible was 
not intended to teach science’’? They mean a therefore, 
and this is what it is: ‘‘Since the Bible was not intended 
to teach science, therefore, when it touches on any of the 
data of science, it may be greatly in error, but that will 
not affect its religious teaching.’’ But what does that sig- 
nify? That God gave to mankind an inerrant religious 
revelation, and then put it into a book full of scientific 
errors and crudities! Not only so, but its history is also 
unreliable. What then? Well, by means of your rea- 
son you must go through the Bible and disengage and 
disentangle its religious teaching from its multitude of 
historical and scientific blunders. Biblical astronomy and 
cosmogony are away ‘‘off,’’ say the critics—but its spirit- 
ual teaching, that is reliable. 

How marvelous is the reasoning of these rationalists! 
It amounts simply to this, that God gave to mankind a re- 
ligious revelation, and embroidered and inlaid it with 
multitudinous errors; also that he separated religion from 
the stream of history, from the facts of the physical cos- 
mos, and kept it far up in the air somewhere until these 
recent times of science and Biblical criticism, when He 
has at last consented to let it come down to the earth and 


222 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


find ‘‘a local habitation and a name.’’ Can you and I be- 
heve that our holy and practical religion is a quixotic 
windmill like that? For our part, we continue to main- 
tain that the religion which God gave us in the Bible is a 
historical religion, and that the Bible itself gives us its 
true history, and indicates unequivocally just what is its 
relation to the general history of the world. 

‘‘The Bible was not intended to teach physical seience.’’ 
No, not primarily. But it does touch and invade the 
realm of physical science in many places. In its first 
chapter it gives a cosmogony. If God simply meant to 
teach religion in that chapter, why did He add so detailed 
a description of the method of creation? In order not to 
get His revelation mixed up with false science He should 
have stepped with the first sentence, ‘‘In the beginning 
God created the heavens and the earth.’’ But ke did nct 
stop there; He went on to tell us just how the primordial 
material was molded into shape and the earth prepared 
step by step for man’s residence. In the first chapter, 
therefore, He gave us some distinct teaching in regard to 
astronomy and cosmology. In telling about the beginning 
of light, He dealt with the science of optics. With the 
origin of life He ventured into biology. Wher He told 
how vegetables came, He turned to botany. Im describing 
the incoming of the animal kingdom He—or the writer 
He inspired—moved into the science of zoology, including 
entomology and ornithology. When He described the at- 
mosphere—called the ‘‘expanse’’-—He was dealing with 
the science of meteorology. And when, in the latter part 
of the first chapter and the early part of the second, He 
recited the beautiful story of man’s creation, He handled 
the material of the great and worthy science of anthrop- 
ology. 

Now we leave it to any one who will use his reason 
logically whether the first chapters of our Bible separate 


: 


THE BIBLE A BOOK OF RELIGION 223 


the relagwous teaching from the sciences with which it is 
connected. Does this part of the Bible set off religion by 
itself as if it were something isolated and alone? Is not 
this rather the real teaching, the full-orbed and all-com- 
prehensive teaching, of the Bible—that its primary purpose 
is religion, but religion set vitally and organically in a 
scientific and historical environment? The world was to be 
gotten ready for a religious inhabitant, and so God tells 
us, So far as was necessary for His wise purpose, just how 
He got the world ready for him. And why did God use 
that method? For the very purpose of showing us that 
man’s religion was not to be something mystical, tenuous, 
and up in the air, but something right down here on the 
ground, vitally connected with the practical affairs of this 
mundane sphere; not a religion divorced from and lifted 
far above the natural sciences, but one that lives amicably 
with them and breathes with them the same atmosphere. 
Yes; the same God who gave us our religion also gave us 
our scientific world-view in its fundamental conceptions, 
so that our science might be religious and our religion 
scientific. Biblical religion is not narrow, exclusive nor 
seclusive, but inclusive—inclusive of all truth. At is not 
a religion for anchorites and mystics, but for men who live 
in the world and do the real work of the world. ‘‘Godli- 
ness is profitable unto all things, having the promise of the 
life that now is, and of that which is to come.”’ It is for 
this world as well as for the next. 

‘“The Bible was not intended to teach history’’; so shout 
the liberalists. That is only part of the truth; it is not 
true as a blanket statement. It has just enough truth to 
be specious and dangerous and to lead the superficial mind 
astray. We should put our statements more discrimi- 
natingly, more accurately: The Bible was not intended to 
teach all or universal history, for we know it does not do 
that ; but it was intended to teach enough history to prove 


224 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


how our holy religion came down to us from the beginning 
of time to the fullness of time—to the complete revelation 
of God’s redemptive plan in Jesus Christ. Wherever it 
does teach history, it teaches it truly and accurately. 
More and more is the science of archeology confirming 
before our very eyes the historicity of the Bible. 

‘<The Bible is a book of religion!’’ dins the liberalist 
over and over again into our ears. ‘‘A book of religion 
only !’’ 

How do-you know that, friend? Where does the Bible 
say so? Can you point to a single passage of Scripture 
which tells you that the Bible was meant to teach only one 
thing? The best way to determine the purpose of the 
Bible is to read it, to master its contents. When we do 
that, what do we find right on the surface? That, while 
it is pre-eminently a book of religion, it teaches a great 
many other things in connection with its religious teach- 
ing and not separate and distinct from it. It teaches how 
the cosmos and man were created, and probably from 
two-thirds to three-fourths of the contents of the Old Tes- 
tament are made up of historical narratives, as is also a 
large part of the New Testament. Pray tell us why God 
inspired men to write so much history if “‘the Bible was 
not intended to teach history.’’ Surely every one ought to 
be able to see that where the Bible recites history, it was 
meant to teach history. Of course, it is history con- 
nected with religion, but religious history is just as his- 
torical as is any other kind. A more rational statement 
would be, The Bible was intended to teach whatever it 
does teach. All through it teaches religion—but in the 
first chapter it also teaches cosmogony; in innumerable 
places it teaches anthropology; and almost everywhere 
it teaches history, for almost every spiritual doctrine has 
a historical setting, and moves along in the historical cur- 
rent. 


THE BIBLE A BOOK OF RELIGION —§ 225 


It is almost too trite to take space to say that there is a 
vast amount of science that the Bible says nothing about. 
We would not go to the Bible to learn the details of any 
modern science, such as physics, chemistry and biology. 
This is not a matter of speculation or conjecture, for, 
when we look into the Bible itself, we do not find it teach- 
ing the minutiae of any physical science. But this is 
what we maintain—when the Bible, in giving a revelation 
and history of our holy religion, touches on the domain of 
any physical science, there it speaks truly; it does not trip, 
falter and fall, and commit egregious blunders, as do the 
cosmogonies and religions of the heathen world. Read the 
crude and absurd account of the creation according to the 
Babylonian monuments, and compare it with the Genetical 
account in the Bible, and you will see the difference be- 
tween the guesses of the human intellect and the inspiration 
of God. There is just enough of truth in the Babylonian 
account to prove that it is a human perversion of the true 
record. 

When a man makes the assertion that the Bible is a 
‘‘hook of religion only,’? we must ask him what he in- 
cludes in the term ‘‘religion.’’ This is a very pertinent 
and important question. He seems to imply that there 
are some things in the Bible that do not belong to the 
realm of religion. If so, we should like to know what 
they are. Let us have something definite. Pray come 
out of the fogland of obscurantism. Is there anything in 
the Bible that does not have a religious significance and 
bearing? If there is, we should be greatly obliged if the 
critic would separate the religious teaching of the Bible 
from its other teaching. The fact is, until the critical 
oracles make some definite statements along this line, the 
whole discussion is in vain; it comes to no head. 

Suppose we take the first and second chapters of Gene- 
sis, and see whether the whole teaching, every verse of it, 


226 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


does not have a religious implication; whether religion is 
not in it all either explicitly or implicitly. The liberals 
will probably admit that the first verse teaches religion, 
because it tells us that the God with whom we have com- 
munion was the Creator of the universe. Then they will 
be likely to stop there, and aver that the method of crea- 
tion (see men like Driver and Dods) is not vital, and must 
be left to the discoveries of science. But how arbitrary 
and illogical that is! If the divine creation itself belongs 
to ‘‘religion,’’ will any one tell us why the method of 
divine creation is not also religious? Is not the method 
of creation also attributed to God as well as the creation 
itself? And does not everything that God does belong to 
the sphere of religion, whether it is creation ex nhilo or 
the molding and developing of the material that has been 
created? Why did the Spirit of Elohim brood over the 
face of the abyss and bring order out of chaos? Why did 
God make light, separate the land and the water, form an 
‘‘expanse’’ between the waters beneath and those above, 
and cause the waters and the land to bring forth vegeta- 
bles and animals? Did He not do all that to make the 
world ready for man’s residence? He surely did, accord- 
ing to the Bible. Well, then, that whole narrative belongs 
to the realm of religion, for it betokens God’s wise and 
gracious plan for man’s well-being, and proves His interest 
in him. If that is not religion, then what is religion? 
Yes, the cosmogony of the Bible and its religion go hand in 
hand and stand or fall together. The creation of man in 
the divine image is pre-eminently religious, for that is 
where man reecived his spiritual nature. As to the method 
of man’s creation as detailed in the second chapter of 
Genesis, that is distinctly religious, too, because it describes 
God’s immediate action, showing that God formed man’s 
body from material substance and then breathed into it 
the spiritual entity which gives to him the divine stamp 


THE BIBLE A BOOK OF RELIGION 2927 


and image. Here religion and anthropology meet and 
blend most beautifully, and you cannot put asunder what 
God has joined together. If the Bible is God’s revelation— 
as even the liberal critics admit—would He have sur- 
rounded man’s creation with a lot of crude and erroneous 
details as to the method? If the Bible was meant merely 
to teach the great religious fact that man is God’s noblest 
handiwork, it surely was superfluous to say anything about 
the method by which He brought man into existence; not 
only superfluous, but most injudicious and confusing. 
However, our chief point is that God’s whole method of 
dealing with man as recorded in the Bible belongs to the 
domain of religion. Wherever God comes in contact with 
man, or does anything for him, there you have religion. 
You cannot divorce the religion of the Bible from its sci- 
ence and history. 

The eritics find much fault with the Biblical narrative 
of the flood. However, that narrative is surcharged with 
religion. The reason the flood came upon the world was 
on account of the wickedness of the people which God 
could no longer brook. He saved Noah and his family 
because He had found them righteous in His sight. God 
gave Noah specific directions as to the building of the ark, 
because it is not to be supposed that any one at that time 
knew enough about the art of ship-building to construct 
such a vessel for such an ordeal. Was not that religious, 
and intensely so? God instructed Noah as to the animals, 
both clean and unclean, which he should take with him into 
the ark. Was not such guidance from God religious? And 
God saved Noah and his family and the animals, and thus 
made wise and ample provision for the re-peopling and 
re-stocking of the world; and after the flood had subsided, 
Noah built an altar and offered sacrifices to God. Re- 
ligion! Thus you note that you cannot separate and tear 


228 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


apart the various fibres of the Bible’s cloth of gold. If 
you do, you will destroy the whole fabric. 

Here we will give an apt quotation from Dr, Henry A. 
Redpath’s ‘‘Modern Criticism and the Book of Genesis.”’ 
Speaking of ‘‘the vast majority of Christians,’’ who, he 
declares, have ‘‘spiritual insight,’’ he says (p. 43): ‘‘It 
will be a long time before they will accept the dangerous 
doctrine which is presented to them to-day, that, in an 
admittedly inspired book, you may have set before you reli- 
gious truth and scientific and historical error. The science 
and history of this book are not the science and history of 
the twentieth century. At the same time we feel quite sure 
—and the opinion is a growing one—they are not opposed to 
it. The book is not in its primary intent and in its content 
a scientific or a historical manual; its purpose is a much 
higher one; and that purpose it will be found more and 
more to fulfill, without in the least traversing any absolute 
truth which science or history may finally arrive at. A 
divinely inspired book could, we feel sure, never deny 
trath,’? 

Some of the illogical rationalists make the claim that 
the history in the Bible is only a parable to prove how God 
always watches over and cares for His people. It is not 
to be accepted at its face value, but only for its religious 
value. But if such is the case, how do we know, after all, 
that God actually exercises a special providence over his 
people and cares for them? Mere legends and fictions never 
can establish a fact.’ They may be only the imaginings of 
men. No one would go to Walter Scott’s novels for a real 
historical fact, if that fact had not been previously estab- 
lished by actual history. The truth is, no scholarly person 
thinks of going to the historical fiction of any time for his 
facts; he goes to them for their literary value, their value 
as efforts of the human imagination, their skill in weaving 
a little history, gathered from genuine historical sources, 


THE BIBLE A BOOK OF RELIGION 229 


into the fabric of an imaginative piece of writing. In all 
historical fiction the history is only a modicum; the ficti- 
tious element is the predominant element. So we say that 
if we have no better basis on which to ground our faith 
in God’s providence and interest than a collection of leg- 
ends and folk stories, we have a very poor basis, one that 
will not bear the stress and shock of times of trial. On the 
other hand, suppose that the Bible gives us literal history, 
that God did really care for Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses 
and the people of Israel as the Bible narrates, then who 
ean doubt the doctrine of His general and special provi- 
dence? No; if we are to have a solid and bracing religion, 
it must have a substantial foundation in history. A foun- 
dation of mere fiction and parable would be a foundation of 
straw. A man who can retain faith in a religion with a 
fictitious basis has not a true intelligent faith, but one that 
is, ipso facto, mere credulity. 

The speaker with whose address we started out in this 
chapter used, as we have said, an illustration of a watch 
and a thermometer. In trying to prove that the Bible is 
exclusively ‘‘a book of religion and not a book of science,”’ 
he held out his watch somewhat dramatically, and de- 
clared: ‘‘When I want to know the time, I look at my 
watch; but when I want to know the temperature, I do 
not consult my watch; I consult a thermometer. So when 
I want to know something about religion, I go to the 
Bible; when I want to know something about science, I 
go to the text-books of science.’’ 

Many people are led astray by an illustration, They 
make up their illustration in such a way as to fit the case, 
and then apply it, and, presto! they think it an argument 
and jump to the conclusion. But an illustration never 
proves a proposition; it simply illustrates it after it has 
been proved. When you know that your proposition is 
true, you can make it plain and impressive by means of 


230 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


imagery; but you cannot use the illustration as a proof. 
Why? Because you have fixed up your illustration to fit 
the case, and so you must first prove whether the illustra- 
tion is apt, relevant, to the point. Now, we hold that the 
illustration about the watch and thermometer is not a true 
parallel; it does not fit the case. And why? Because 
you first have to prove that ‘‘the Bible is purely a book 
of religion,’’ and that it does not teach, with the religion, a 
good many other things. What are the facts in the case? 
When we come to look into the contents of the Bible, we 
find that it does teach a very distinct cosmogony ; not, it 
is true, in much detail, but in broad, vital and general 
lines, that are, we hold, strictly in accordance with the 
established facts of physical and anthropological science. 
It tells us how the universe was created and prepared for 
man, and then it tells us how man was brought into exist- 
ence. ‘True enough, all this is intensely religious, but it 
also invades the domain of certain physical sciences, and 
recites—or professes to recite—actual history. Besides, 
when we read the Bible, we discover at once that, after 
the narrative of the expulsion of man from the garden of 
Eden, it continues to give a historical narrative of the ex- 
periences of the human family. 

Therefore we see that the Bible, though primarily in- 
tended to teach religion, teaches a good many other things 
besides, giving the religion a scientific and historical basis 
and environment. So the watch-thermometer illustra- 
tion is not apropos. ‘As a method of proof it is a fallacy, 
a proteron hysteron. To make it fit the real exegencies 
of the case you would better use an instrument which 
measures both the time and the temperature, with its chief 
purpose that of a time-keeper. Moreover, can any watch 
be made, and made a reliable time-meter, without refer- 
ence to the temperature? Must not the material be so 
made and the mechanism so constructed as to remain almost, 


THE BIBLE A BOOK OF RELIGION 231 


if not quite, immune from the changes of temperature and 
humidity? Make a watch of wood, and see how trust- 
worthy it will be in ticking off the seconds. No; we do 
not believe in making the religion of the Bible an isolated 
thing, divorced from the science and history into whose 
warp and woof it is woven, just as we do not believe in 
separating the practice of religion from the history, science, 
thought and every-day life of our times. True religion 
ramifies the whole realm of life and experience. It is 
Ritschlianism, always narrow and one-sided, which tries to 
make a kind of mystical anchoritism of religion. With the 
liberal mystics, religion is nothing but a kind of watch, 
intended to register the emotional moods and tenses. But 
with orthodox Christians it is something practical and all- 
inclusive. 

To conclude and get right down to the facts, what is 
the precise relation of the Bible to science? The way to 
decide this question is not to formulate a theory, and then 
make the Bible fit into it, but to study the Bible itself. 
When we do this, we straightway learn that it is not a 
book that teaches a great deal of science; it does not go 
into many of the details of astronomy and cosmology; it 
teaches very little geology, biology, botany and ornithology ; 
scarcely any, if any, chemistry is taught on its pages. It 
does not even set out in a formal way a sytem of theology. 
But when that is said, the facts compel us to say more. At 
certain points, and those very vital ones, it connects its 
religious teaching with some of the sciences, as, for example, 
in the first and second chapters of Genesis. Our position 
is that, whenever and wherever it does this, it sounds the 
note of truth, absolute truth; it does not err and blunder, 
as do other humanly made systems of religion and the 
mere speculations of men, but its teaching is in strict accord 
with the ascertained results of the science of our times and 


232 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


of all times.* So far as regards those large areas of 
science on which the Bible, empirically tested, does not 
touch, we are only too happy to consult the reliable works 
of technical science; and we believe that the Bible student 
who studies the marvels of scientific investigation will be- 
come all the better a theologian on that account. He will 
be heartily glad to accept the truth wherever he finds it. 


*In this chapter it has not been our purpose to show how beauti- 
fully the Bible and science agree wherever they come together. This 
has been amply done by the authors cited in our ‘‘Selected Bibliog- 
raphy,’’ under the heading, ‘‘Science and Philosophy.’’ Special at- 
tention is called to the works of Dawson, Wright and Azbill. 


CHAPTER XII 
SOME THOUGHTS ON THE INCARNATION 


Ir is not our purpose in this chapter to treat all the points 
pertaining to the doctrine of the incarnation of the Son 
of God, but simply to present some of the results of our 
recent thinking and study on this great topic of theology. * 
The doctrine of the person of Christ, or what is known as 
Christology, is a subject of perennial interest. This is 
evident from the large number of books that have been 
written on the subject, many of them within the last few 
years. 

To try to prove that the divine incarnation is a Biblical 
doctrine would be superfluous, as our readers are familiar 
with all the classical passages. We will pause here to make 
only one citation. In John 1:1 we read: ‘‘In the begin- 
ning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the 
Logos was God.’’ Then in the 14th verse this is said: 
“‘And the Logos became (egeneto) flesh, and tabernacled 
among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory of the only- 
begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.’’ If this pas- 
Sage does not mean a divine incarnation, it is devoid of any 
signification that can be made clear to the mind. As we 
proceed with our discussion, we shall cite other revelant 
proof-passages. 

The incarnation of the divine Son of God connotes sev- 


“The rationale of the incarnation is presented, in a somewhat 
expanded form in the author’s work, ‘‘The Rational Test,’’ Chapter 
VII, with many arguments not here given. 


233 


234 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


eral doctrines that are vital to it. One of these doctrines is— 
The Miraculous Conception 


Those theologians who deny the miraculous conception, 
or the virgin birth, of our Lord are compelled to reject those 
parts of the evangelical records, namely, Matt. 1:18-25 and 
Luke 1:26-56, which give a clear account of such a concep- 
tion, and carry the air of historical verisimilitude. Into the 
critical question respecting these records we have no desire 
to go, nor is it necessary. For able and convincing discus- 
sions of the problem we refer the reader to Dr. James Orr’s 
great work, “‘The Virgin Birth of Jesus Christ’’ and Prof. 
Louis Matthews Sweet’s searching book, ‘‘The Birth and In- 
fancy of Jesus Christ.’’ Another excellent book, not so 
large as the two just mentioned, but very able, is Dr. R. 
J. Knowling’s ‘‘Our Lord’s Virgin Birth and the Criti- 
cism of To-day.’’ No less heartily do we commend Dr. T. 
J. Thorburn’s ‘‘The Virgin Birth: A Critical Examination 
of the Evidences of.’’ The last two works are published 
by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, Lon- 
don, as is also Dr. H. M. Relton’s ‘‘A Study in Chris- 
tology,’’ referred to later in this chapter. The above- 
named society publishes many safe and conservative works 
marked by saneness, scholarship and evangelical earnest- 
ness. The difficulty with the critics who reject these birth 
narratives is that they manipulate them to conform to their 
subjective views, and hence their treatment cannot truly 
be called historical criticism. With them it is a foregone 
conclusion, to begin with, that such a miracle as a pure 
conception by the Holy Ghost is impossible and absurd. 

Now our purpose shall be to try to show that the miracu- 
lous conception is not absurd, but reasonable and necessary, 
and that, therefore, the narratives of Matthew and Luke 
may stand in all their beauty, simplicity and historical 


SOME THOUGHTS ON INCARNATION 235 


integrity. With us it matters little about the ‘*sources,”’ 
about which the critics to-day make so much ado and over 
which they spend so much time in airing their speculations 
and conjectures, The fact is, Matthew was an apostle of 
Jesus Christ, associated with Him for some three years, 
and so Christ Himself would be his best source. Luke was 
closely associated with Paul, and no doubt wrote his gospel 
under the direction of that apostle, and Paul met the im- 
mediate disciples of Christ again and again, and surely 
must have known the chief facts of Christ’s life. More- 
over, Christ promised His apostles the inspiration of the 
Holy Spirit, who, if He guided them in their oral teach- 
ing, would surely have also directed them when they came 
to make the records that were to carry the message of 
salvation in trustworthy form down through the ages. The 
difficulty with many of the liberal critics is that they never 
mention Christ and the Holy Spirit among the ‘‘sources’’ 
of the gospel writings. That would be too simple a 
process; would get too near the supernatural and miracu- 
lous, and especially would not give them an opportunity 
to display their labored and technical ‘‘scholarship.’’ 

What would it mean to say that Christ was not ‘‘con- 
ceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary?’’ It 
would mean that there was no divine incarnation, no God- 
man, and therefore no Redeemer of the world. If He, the 
Christ, was not the Redeemer, the world has never had a Re- 
deemer; we are still groping in darkness, and none of the 
problems of sin, salvation and eternal destiny have been 
solved. For, if Christ was conceived by natural generation, 
He was a sinful being like the rest of us, and therefore 
could not have redeemed even Himself, to say nothing of 
redeeming the world. 

Here some one replies: ‘‘But, though naturally pro- 
created, He was immaculately conceived.’’ We answer, that 
is simply substituting one miracle for another, and we can 


236 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


see no good reason for the substitution. Besides, there is 
not one iota of Seriptural or historical evidence for an im- 
maculate conception of Christ, in which God merely pre- 
vented the transmission of congenital sinfulness. There is 
no more proof for the immaculate conception of Christ 
than there is for the immaculate conception of the Virgin 
Mary, which is a tenet of Roman Catholic theology. More- 
over, the redemption of the world from sin requires some- 
thing more than merely an immaculate man, At the very 
most an immaculate man could have made atonement for 
only one sinner; yes, and perhaps not even for one. 

But other absurdities would follow if Christ was en- 
gendered in the natural way. Then a human person, an 
ego, would have been brought into being. If the Logos, 
who was also a person, had united Himself with the human 
person thus born, Christ would have been two persons; or 
the two persons would have been consubstantiated into a 
tertium quid; or the one would have been absorbed by or 
transubstantiated into the other. All these suppositions are 
untenable because they are absurd. Take the idea that 
Christ was a being with two egos—who can tolerate such a 
thought? To our mind, it is more than preposterous; it is 
monstrous. More than that, it would destroy the unity of 
Christ’s self-consciousness, on which even the liberal theo- 
logians and critics of the day are insisting most strenuously. 
Where did Christ ever give the faintest intimation of a 
dual consciousness? He always spoke of Himself in the 
first person singular. Never once did He speak of Him- 
self as ‘‘we.’’ In His first recorded utterance He used the 
pronoun ‘‘I’’: ‘‘Wist ye not that J must be about my 
Father’s business?’’ None of the evangelists and none of 
the apostles ever applied to Him a plural pronoun or cog- 
nomen, but always the singular. If He had a dual per- 
sonality, He either did not have a clear self-consciousness, 
or else He gave a false revelation of Himself; and either 


SOME THOUGHTS ON INCARNATION 237 


alternative would prove that He could not have been even 
a reliable teacher and a true example, to say nothing of 
being the divine Redeemer of the world. 

Or suppose His human ego was absorbed by the divine 
ego of the Logos; then He was not truly human, not ‘‘very 
man of very man,’’ and so you run off into docetism. Be- 
sides, would it not be absurd beyond comprehension for God 
to permit a human ego to be brought into existence, and 
then transubstantiate or absorb it into the divine ego? That 
would be like the pantheism of the Hindu religion. And we 
might well ask, what was the purpose of bringing a human 
ego into being only to destroy its human quality by divine 
absorption? To suppose that the divine ego was absorbed 
by the human ego would be too absurd to be cherished for a 
moment, and, besides, would border on irreverence. The 
same might be said of the conception that the two egos were 
merged into a tertiwm quid, which would be neither divine 
nor human. A being thus constituted would be too anom- 
alous to be the world’s Saviour. 

It may be thought that there is still another alternative: 
namely, that Christ was naturally generated, and that God 
simply united Himself with Him in an ethical or mystical 
way. This is the view, with various shades of differences, of 
such theologians as Ritschl, Rothe, Beyschlag, Lipsius, and 
many others. However, such a view is untenable for a num- 
ber of reasons, First, it would have been no divine incar- 
nation, but only a mystical union of the divine and human, 
such as all regenerated persons have and experience; it 
would have been no hypostatic union, only an ethical 
union, According to this view, Christ was not a unique 
being, a theanthropic person, but was like all believers, 
differing from them only in degree, but not in kind; there- 
fore not the God-man, not the Saviour and Redeemer. Of 
Him it could not be said that He was ‘‘Immanuel, God 
with us,’’ or ‘‘the Word become flesh,’’ or ‘‘God manifest 


238 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


in the flesh.’’? Such a being, that is, merely a ‘‘God-filled 
man’’ (Schleiermacher, Martineau, e¢ al), could not have 
made ‘‘propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, 
but for the whole world,’’ nor could He have ‘‘tasted death 
for every man,’’ nor could ‘‘the iniquity of us all’’ have 
been laid upon Him, Not only is such a doctrine un- 
Biblical, but it is unreasonable; because, if Christ was a 
divinely filled man, and thus was without sin, He still 
would be a great miracle. If men can accept such a miracle, 
why should they stumble over the miracle required by the 
evangelical doctrine of the Church—that of the concep- 
tion by the Holy Ghost? It should be remembered, too, 
that a God-filled man would be adequate to only a part 
of the task required of the world’s Redeemer—that is, He 
could be nothing more than our teacher, leader and ex- 
ample; whereas a true God-man could be these, and could, 
in addition, perform the greater and more necessary task of 
making propitiation for the sins of the whole world, satis- 
fying the principle of eternal justice, and upholding the 
moral economy of the universe. Why should not theo- 
logians be scientific by assigning an adequate cause for 
every effect in the religious and ethical realm as well as 
in the physical? 

The view of Rothe, that Christ was only a man, but 
through divine influence gradually developed into Deity, is 
also untenable, because, as Dr. James Orr* points out so 
effectively, that process would virtually add another person 
to the Godhead. Besides, the very idea of a human being 
unfolding into a divine being is metaphysically absurd, 
and is more like Hindu pantheism than like Christian 
theology. 

Therefore we conclude that the conception by the Holy 
Ghost of the Virgin Mary is the only scientific and adequate 


* Cf. his ‘‘The Christian View of God and the Workd,’? i loco 
(consult index). 


SOME THOUGHTS ON INCARNATION 239 


doctrine ; and if we can believe in the supernatural at all, it 
is very reasonable that God, the Holy Spirit, could enter the 
procreative depths of the Virgin, take from her seminal 
substance the essence of human nature, and unite it hypo- 
statically with the person of the divine Logos. It may be 
said that such a conception has never been known to have 
taken place anywhere else, and therefore it cannot be 
accepted here. Certainly it has never taken place any- 
where else! If it had, Christ would not be unique. What 
is it that makes our Lord different, unus et unicus? The 
very fact that He was chosen to be the Redeemer of the 
world. Therefore, if His vocation was so utterly unique, 
His conception must also have been unique.* This brings 
us to another vital question: 


How a Divine Incarnation Was Possible 


If, instead of thinking along mere human lines, which 
are always more or less narrow and one-sided, we will study 
and accept the whole completely rounded Biblical teaching, 
we shall see how ‘‘sweetly reasonable’’ it was for the divine 
Son of God to become man. Go back to the Biblical nar- 
rative of the creation, and all will be plain. There it is said 
that God made man in His own image. With God there 
ean be no after-thoughts. If there were, if He did not 
and could not foresee all things, and thus provide for every 
possible contingency, His universe would some time be 
hurled into ruin. So when God determined to create the 
cosmos, He foreknew that man would sin; therefore He 
created the cosmos and His highest creature, man, In view 
of the fact that He would redeem them through the in- 
_ carnation of His only begotten Son. Thus He made man 
in the divine image so that there would be so close a kin- 


* For additional reasons for the miraculous conception of Christ, 
see the author’s ‘‘The Rational Test,’’ Chapter VI, 


240 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


dredship between the divine and the human natures that 
the divine could become incarnate in the human. God’s 
whole plan is a solidarity ; it is one—one plan in creation, 
preservation and redemption. Thus man was originally 
created with these two fundamental possibilities: first, 
that the divine Logos could be hypostatically united with 
human nature; second, that we, through the power and 
grace of that union, might be mystically reunited with 
divinity. Could anything be more structural, more organic, 
more credible? 


The Anhypostasia of the Human Nature 


What was it that the divine Logos assumed in the incar- 
nation—a human person or human nature? This is a ques- 
tion that has been much controverted. <A liberal theological 
writer, Edwin Heyl Delk, in his booklet, ‘‘The Need of a 
Restatement of Theology,’’ scoffs at the doctrine of the 
Anhypostasia; but, as usual, he offers no argument against 
it, or in favor of his own view, if he has a clear one. He 
also seems to put Seeburg and Loofs on his side. 

Lutheran theologians, however, generally accept the doc- 
trine of the Anhypostasia,* though most, if not all, of them 
prefer the term Enhypostasia. Among these we mention 
Hollazius, Quenstedt, Gerhard (cited in Schmad’s ‘Doc- 
trinal Theology’’), Jacobs, Weidner, Graebner and Blom- 
gren. Of course many theologians of other communions 
might be cited. John of Damascus and Peter Lombard 
stoutly upheld this doctrine, and Dr. James Orr argued 
for it most convincingly. However, instead of merely cit- 
ing authorities, let us consider the problem on its own 
merits. 

In the first place, if Christ’s human nature had a human 


* This term means that the human nature of Christ was without 
(an) personality, and that, therefore, the divine Logos supplied the 
Ego in the incarnation. 


SOME THOUGHTS ON INCARNATION 241 


person, the virgin birth was unnecessary, for the normal 
way of bringing a human person into being would have 
been by natural procreation. In such a case the law of 
parsimony would have been violated in the very incarna- 
tion itself. In the next place, is not the very thought of 
the Holy Ghost constituting a human person in the womb 
of the virgin, and then uniting it with another person, 
that of the Logos, an absurdity? Let us go further. Ifa 
human ego was constituted, Christ must have been two 
persons, must have had two egos; which is an absurdity, 
and would destroy the unity of Christ’s consciousness. Or 
else the human ego was destroyed, which is a monstrous 
supposition. If it was destroyed, why was it constituted 
at all? Or else it was absorbed in the divine ego—tran- 
substantiation—or the divine ego was absorbed by it, or 
the two were merged together. None of these suppositions 
is rational, nor is there any Scriptural basis for them. 

The only tenable view is that egoity was supplied from 
the divine side—that the person of the Logos posited Him- 
self in human nature, put himself under truly human con- 
ditions, and lived here on earth a truly human life. We 
leave it to any man who can think lucidly whether this is 
not the only way in which there could have been a real 
divine incarnation, the only way in which the Logos could 
have become (egeneto) man and tabernacled among us 
(John 1:14). On any other theory you have either an 
anomaly or only a mystical union, but not a divine incarna- 
tion. The choice lies between the doctrine of the Anhy pos- 
tasia of the human nature, or the rejection of the Divine- 
human Redeemer, the theanthropic person of Christ, and 
the hypostatie union. 

In reply to the objection, raised, no doubt, by sincere 
thinkers, that, if our Lord’s human nature was without 
personality, Christ would not have been truly human, be- 
cause personality is an essential element of human nature, 


nm 


24g CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


we have to reply that the objectors fail in deep and funda- 
mental thinking. Personality—which means self-conscious- 
ness, the ability to say ‘‘I’’—is not something that is pe- 
culiar to man; it is something that he has in common with 
God and the angels. All of them say ‘‘I,’’ and they mean 
by it one and the same thing—the quality or power of 
self-cognition. But what is it that is sui generis in man? 
It is his human nature. That is the very reason it is called 
human, thereby distinguishing it from the divine and an- 
gelic natures. We can think of at least four particulars in 
which human nature is unique: First, it is dual, being 
constituted of mind and matter, body and soul; second, it 
is capable of being procreated from one generation to the 
next; third, after the original creation of the man and the 
woman, it develops from an embryo and is born in the 
infantile condition; fourth, it must reach many of its 
thought conclusions by discursive processes. In all these 
particulars it is differentiated from both the divine. and 
the angelic natures. 

Now note: When the ego of the divine Logos posited, 
enfolded and ensphered Himself in human nature in both 
parts, somatic and psychical, did He not become truly 
human? Did He not assume human nature ir all its dis- 
tinctive elements? Did not the divine ego function in a 
truly human way? Yes; here you have a real divinr in- 
carnation, not a makeshift, not an evasion. And you can 
say truly, ‘‘The Logos became man, and dwelt among us.’’ 
You can also subscribe ex animo to the noble old ecumeni- 
eal creed, which says that Christ was ‘‘very man of very 
man,’’ as well as ‘‘very God of very God.’’ 

This matter will become still clearer when we consider 
our next locus: 


SOME THOUGHTS ON INCARNATION 248 


The Kenosis 


That there was a kenosis of some kind the Scriptures 
teach both explicitly and implicitly (Phil. 2:7, and many 
other passages). Of what, then, was there a kenosis? Most 
of our Lutheran theologians correctly teach that there was 
no kenosis of the divine nature or substance. Among the 
most recent writers who hold this view we may mention 
Jacobs, Weidner, Valentine, Voigt, Graebner and Blom- 
gren. Others who held the same view were Dr. James Orr 
and Dr. Francis J. Hall. 

And why can we not admit the doctrine of the kenosis 
of the divine nature or substance? Because the Son shares 
the divine nature or substance with the Father and the 
Spirit. That is what the three persons of the Godhead 
have in common—homoousios. Therefore if the divine na- 
ture would have been renounced, there would have been a 
kenosis of the whole Godhead. Then who, during the 
period of the humiliation of the Son of God, would have 
upheld and directed the universe? It is plain that God 
would not have dared to abdicate His throne, not even for 
a moment. 

Of what, then, was there a kenosis? Most certainly of 
the human nature. To that all evangelical theologians will 
agree, for the empirical fact is that the human nature was 
not at once glorified, but passed through all the stages of 
humble life. Only at times was there a partial majesta- 
ticum of the human nature, as, for example, at the trans- 
figuration, in the miracles, and especially during the 
interim of the forty days after the resurrection. 

However, may we not, in the light of the whole Biblical 
teaching, go a step further in regard to the kenosis? We 
give the following thoughts only tentatively, and ask for 
them fair and judicial scrutiny. Nothing is asserted dog- 
matically here, but we simply ask for a serious considera- 


244 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


tion of the following arguments on the part of evangelical 
theologians. While there could not have been a self- 
emptying of the divine nature, might there not have been 
such an emptying of the divine person or ego of the Son? 
We mean this: Might not the ego of the Logos voluntarily, 
lovingly and for our sakes have posited and enfolded Him- 
self in human nature and put Himself under human limita- 
tions for the time being, and thus have lived a truly human 
life on earth? If the blessed Son did this, would not such 
an act have been a real divine incarnation, and would not 
the person of the Logos have become ‘‘very man of very 
man?’’ Would not this view explain all the human con- 
ditions under which Jesus lived and to which He was sub- 
ject? It would not mean that He renounced His deity, 
but that for the time being and for our sakes He placed 
His self-consciousness under human limitation. 

It may be said that we cannot separate the divine person 
of the Son from the divine nature. That is true, but our 
view does not propose to separate them. However, we do 
distinguish between the divine substance and the threefold 
divine personality. We say God is one in essence and three 
in persons. Hence we distinguish the three persons from 
the one divine essence, and we say the three persons have 
the essence in common, but each has His own ego or person, 
The Scriptures themselves make this differentiation, or 
orthodox theology would not dare to make it. ‘‘In the 
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and 
the Word was God.’’ Jesus always addressed the Father 
as a distinct person, and also spoke of the Holy Spirit in | 
the same way. All the New Testament writers make the 
same immanent distinction in the Godhead, taking it for 
granted. 

What is the true doctrine of the Trinity? That in the 
one Godhead there are not three individuals, but three cen- 
ters or foci of self-consciousness, whereby He is, and has 


SOME THOUGHTS ON INCARNATION 248 


been from eternity, the loving Father, Son and Holy Spirit, 
the ground and source of all threefoldness and diversity in 
the universe which He created. He is an immanent Trin- 
ity, not merely a modal omeconomic Trinity. Now, if each 
member of the Holy Trinity has His own self-conscious ego 
distinct from the other two, while yet all have the same 
essence, how rational and how kind it was for the Father 
to ‘‘send’’ the Son, and for the Son to ‘‘come’’ of His own 
good will, and enshrine His self-consciousness in our human 
nature, and live our human life here on earth; while at the 
same time the egos of the Father and the Spirit, through 
the divine nature, which the three have in common, 
streamed forth to Him, enlightened Him, upheld Him and 
directed Him during His period of kenosis, never trench- 
ing on His assumed human freedom, and yet never desert- 
ing Him. By this view the three persons of the Godhead 
were kept in their integrity and in vital contact, and at 
the same time their sovereignty over the universe was not 
renounced, because there was no kenosis of the divine 
nature or substance, nor of the egos of the Father and the 
Spirit. 

Let us note how many things in the Holy Scriptures this 
doctrine will explain. It will explain how there could be a 
real conception of Christ by the Holy Ghost; how He could 
be an unconscious babe in His mother’s arms; how He 
could really and truly, and not merely docetically, ‘‘grow 
in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.”’ 
It will throw light on His saying, ‘‘The word which ye 
hear is not mine, but the Father’s who sent me’’ (Jn. 
14:24; also verse 10). Note too: ‘‘The Son can do noth- 
ing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father doing’’ (Jn. 
5:19); ‘‘I can of myself do nothing; as I hear I judge; 
and my judgment is righteous, because I seek not mine own 
will, but the will of Him that sent me’’ (Jn. 5: 380) ; “‘I do 
nothing of myself, but as the Father taught me I speak 


246 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


these things. And He that sent me is with me; He hath 
not left me alone; for I do always the things that are 
pleasing to Him.’’ Our view will also explain another 
marvelous saying of Christ: ‘‘And now, Father, glorify 
thou me with thine own glory, with the glory which I had 
with thee before the world was’’ (Jn. 17:5). If the last 
passage does not connote a divine renunciation of some 
kind, it is difficult to say what plain language means, for 
it is evident that the preéxistent glory of the Son could 
not to be applied to the human nature. The view here pro- 
posed will also explicate Christ’s admission that He did 
not know the day nor the hour of the last judgment (Matt. 
24:36; Mark 13:32). It also explains His prayer in 
Gethsemane for the cup to pass, ‘‘if it be possible,’’ and 
yet His leaving it to the Father’s will; and, best of all, it 
will explain his plaintive cry on the cross, ‘‘My God, my 
God, why hast thou forsaken me?’’ It also affords the 
most satisfactory explanation of the classical text, Phil. 
2:1-11. The whole luminous passage should be read with 
the foregoing observations in mind. Note also how our 
view irradiates Heb. 5:7, 8,9: ‘‘Who in the days of His 
flesh, having offered up prayers and supplications with 
strong crying and tears unto Him who was able to save 
Him from death, and having been heard for His godly 
fear, though He was a Son, yet learned obedience by the 
things which He suffered; and having been made perfect, 
He became unto all them that obey Him the author of 
eternal salvation.’’ 

Thus we see that the holy and self-sacrificing Son of 
God, in infinite love, voluntarily renounced the exercise of 
His divine self-consciousness (but not His divine nature), 
in order that He might function in and through a truly 
human life here on earth. Yet, though thus self-limited, 
He never sinned and never erred; His life was sinless and 
His teaching inerrant, because, as He says, He always kept. 


SOME THOUGHTS ON INCARNATION 247 


Himself in contact with His Father. Had He broken that 
connection for a moment, as Satan tempted Him to do with 
an ‘‘if thou be the Son of God,’’ all would have been lost. 
But, thanks be to God! He won in every contest with evil, 
and hence became the ‘‘ Captain of our salvation.”’ 

Let us illustrate. We human beings have at least adum- 
brations of this unique power of putting a limitation on 
our self-consciousness. By acts of the will we may elide 
many things from our minds. We make the effort to for- 
get, and In some measure we succeed. Sometimes we can 
even forget ourselves for a while. But let us take two 
examples. When Father Damien went to the leper com- 
munity to live and die, did he not put a kind of kenosis 
upon his consciousness? Did he not voluntarily renounce 
much of the knowledge of the stirring outside world? 
David Livingstone immured himself for years in darkest 
Africa, living among the poor negroes. Was not that a 
voluntary kenosis of the knowledge of the world and its 
activities that he might otherwise have enjoyed? And do 
you not suppose he drove many things from his memory 
which, had he not done so, would have made his seclusion 
unbearable? But he found his compensating joy in the 
help he was able to bring to his poor, benighted Africans. 

These are perhaps feeble illustrations, but do they not 
give us something of a clew to the possibilities of self- 
renunciation in the infinite divine love and power? Thus, 
without trying to explain away its force, we may accept 
the inspired declaration that Christ truly emptied Him- 
self, truly humbled Himself, and became obedient unto 
death, even the death of the cross. We are also prepared 
to accept what follows: ‘‘Wherefore God hath highly 
exalted Him,’’ ete. Yes, the divine Son has been restored 
to complete divine self-consciousness and glory, and has 
borne to the same exalted state the human nature in which 
He once imprisoned Himself for our sakes. For this reason 


248 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


we shall some time partake of His excellent glory: ‘‘Though 
He was rich, yet for our sakes He became poor, that we 
through His poverty might be made rich’’ (2 Cor. 3:9). 

After the foregoing had been written and sent to the 
printer (it was first printed in The Lutheran Church Re- 
view in April, 1918, but written some months earlier), a 
new book (1917) came into our hands. It is Dr. H. M. 
Relton’s ‘‘A Study in Christology: The Problem of the 
Two Natures in the Person of Christ.’’ It is a most illu- 
minating work, and reviews the whole history of the 
Christological problem. To our mind, it is a better work 
than Sanday’s ‘‘Christologies, Ancient and Modern,’’ be- 
cause the author has thought his way through to clear 
views and a firm conviction. He advocates the doctrine of 
the Anhypostasia of the human nature of Christ, but calls 
it Enhypostasia, which, while it virtually means the same 
thing, may be the preferable word; it means that the 
human nature of Christ was never without personality, 
because, in its very formation or conception, it was made 
personal in and by the person of the Logos. The main 
point is established by this profound author, we think, 
namely, that the egoity of Christ is that of the Logos, not 
that of the human nature. In one respect, however, we 
do not think that Dr. Relton clears up the problem as muéh 
as he might. He admits of no kenosis of the ego of the 
Son, but assumes that Christ from the beginning of his 
earthly life had full divine self-consciousness and was also 
limited by His assumed human nature. To our mind, this 
view still attributes to our Lord a double instead of a single 
consciousness. Dualism in our Lord’s consciousness cannot 
be permitted, while dualism of His natures must be up- 
held, if we accept the whole teaching of the Holy Scrip- 
tures. 


SOME THOUGHTS ON INCARNATION 249 


The Hypostatic Union 


This is the term in theology by which is meant the union 
of the divine and human natures in the person of Christ. 
Of course it has depths which the human mind cannot 
fathom; and yet we believe that the orthodox view can at 
least be shown to be reasonable. However, our purpose now 
is to answer a few objections to the orthodox doctrine which 
were made several years ago by a liberal theologian (Dr. 
Edwin Heyl Delk), who felt sure at that time that ‘‘a re- 
statement of theology’’ was necessary for the world’s well- 
being. We shall let him speak for himself: 

“The metaphysical and docetic atmosphere in which most 
of the earlier treatises were projected has been superseded 
by the historical, human approach in the study of our 
Lord’s personality. Not that the supernatural factors, as 
declared in the New Testament, are ignored or denied, but 
that the earthly, human side of Jesus’ nature and career 
has become the starting-point for the study of His person. 
Albert Schweitzer, in ‘The Quest for the Historical Jesus,’ 
has given us the classic study of this phase of the person 
of Christ.’’ 

The reflection on ‘‘most of the earlier treatises’’ as 
‘‘metaphysical and docetic’’ is untrue and unjust. That 
there were docetists—those who denied the reality of 
Christ’s human nature—in those days is true enough, but 
they were always condemned as heretics by the orthodox 
party. Dr. Delk’s sweeping assertion would seem to include 
even the framers of the Nicene Creed, which asserted the 
true manhood of Christ; and so did the Athanasian Creed; 
so the Augsburg Confession; and we do not know of a 
single evangelical theologian who has not rejected docetism, 
and taught that Christ is ‘‘very man of very man.’’ But 
our author holds that ‘‘the human side of Christ has now 


250 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


become the starting-point in the study of His person.’’ 
That is just the danger of this radical ‘‘modernism’’; it 
puts so much emphasis on the human side that, if it does 
not deny, it at least neglects, the divine side. It even tries 
to account for the person of Christ by evolution. We have 
read Albert Schweitzer’s book, ‘‘The Mystery of the King- 
dom of God,’’ which is a later work than the one that Dr. 
Delk praises so highly, and we are bound to say that he 
makes Christ so decidedly human, with His mistaken and 
even fanatical notions of eschatology and apocalypse, that 
we cannot see where His divine nature could have a place. 
To attribute human frailty and error to Christ is certainly 
to destroy His value as the divine-human Saviour of the 
world; the One in whom we can repose unfaltering trust 
for our eternal salvation. 

At all events, to make Christ’s human nature the starting- 
point is not the Biblical way, which emphasizes both the 
divine and the human elements in His person proportion- 
ately and correlates them properly, and thus forms the 
basis for our evangelical creeds and systems of theology. 
Suppose we scrutinize the Biblical method for a little while. 
In Matt. 1: 18-23 we have the narrative of the interview of 
the angel of the anunciation with Joseph, in which Joseph 
was told that Mary, his betrothed wife, was with child by 
the Holy Ghost. Then the angel said: ‘‘And she shall 
bring forth a son; and thou shalt call His name Jesus; for 


it is He that shall save His people from their sins.’’ And 


the name Jesus, when traced back through the Hebrew, 
means Jehovah-Savior. Here both the divine and human 
elements are indicated. A little later the angel said, ‘‘ And 
His name shall be called Immanuel, which is, being inter- 
preted, God with us.’’ Here the Deity of Christ is clearly 
indicated. The gospel, according to St. John, does not 
start with the human nature of Christ, but the very oppo- 
site. Note the first two verses: ‘‘In the beginning was 


Oe _ 


SOME THOUGHTS ON INCARNATION 251) 


the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was 
God. The same was in the beginning with God.’? Then 
observe that in the fourteenth verse we read: ‘‘And the 
Logos became flesh, and tabernacled among us, and we be- 
held His glory, the glory of the only begotten of the 
Father.’’ This is the precise opposite of Schweitzer and 
all the Schweitzerized liberalists of England and America, 
The Bible does not make the human nature ‘‘the starting- 
point.’’ We confess to a decided preference for the Biblical 
~way of putting things. It does not put them one-sidedly. 
In St. Luke’s account of the angel Gabriel’s visit to the 
Virgin Mary, we find the same beautiful codrdination of 
the divine and human elements in Christ’s person. And. 
all through the thrilling narratives of the evangelists both 
natures proceed together in the unity of the person. Now 
this nature, now that, comes most to the fore; but Christ 
is always the one person, the one ‘‘I,’’ the one ‘‘He.’’ For 
the most part, Jesus lived a natural human life, but here 
and there His divinity flashed out in a wonderful way, just 
as should have been the case if He was the incarnate Son 
of God. From the full Biblical representation our evangeli- 
eal theologians have drawn and formulated their Christo- 
logical doctrine. 

Again we quote from our author: ‘‘But the abiding 
fact of the indwelling of the divine nature in Jesus does 
receive a different interpretation from that presented in 
the Chalcedonian Creed, or that of the speculative com- 
muncatio tdiomatum.’’ 

It certainly is poor theology to speak of ‘‘the indwelling 
of the divine nature in Jesus’’; at least, it is an ambiguous 
mode of expression. It sounds as if the author believed 
that Jesus was merely a human being in whom the divine 
nature dwelt. If that is what the author meant, he is 
wrong theologically, and his teaching is absurd and puerile. 
For if Jesus was merely a human person in whom the 


- 


252 ‘CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


divine nature dwelt, then Jesus was one person and the 
divine nature another, and that would make Him a being 
composed of two persons; which would be an absurdity. 
No; the divine nature was a constituent element of Christ; 
indeed, it constituted the ego of Him. The divine Logos 
assumed human nature, not a human person. If the divine 
Logos, who was a person from eternity, had taken a human 
person into His Godhead, the result would have been a 
being with two egos; which, as we have said, would have 
been an absurdity, not to say a monstrosity. It would have 
made the unity of Christ’s self-consciousness impossible. 
Then He would have had to say ‘‘We,’’ and could not have 
said “‘I.’? On the other hand, if the divine nature merely 
dwelt in Jesus as a human person, then there was only a 
mystical union between Him and the Logos; there was no 
hypostatic union, no divine incarnation. The proper Deity 
of Christ would thus be nullified. If He would differ from 
the Christian believer, who is also mystically united with 
God, it would be only in degree. He would not be unique; 
He would not be the God-man; He would not be the Re- 
deemer of the world and the Lord of creation. 

Observe that our brother cannot away with the Chris- 
tology of the Chalcedonian Creed. This we regret exceed- 
ingly. The great creed in question makes one of the clear- - 
est, fullest, profoundest and most discriminating statements 
of the person of Christ that was ever formulated. It sets 
forth precisely the doctrine found in the Nicene Creed, the’ 
Athanasian Creed and the Augsburg Confession. We quote 
from the creed of Chalcedon: 

*“We, then, following the holy Fathers, all with one con- 
sent, teach men to confess one and the same Son, our Lord 
Jesus Christ, the same perfect in Godhead and also per- 
fect in Manhood; truly God and truly Man, of a reason- 
able soul and body; consubstantial with the Father, ac- 


SOME THOUGHTS ON INCARNATION 253 


cording to the Godhead, and consubstantial with us, accord- 
ing to the Manhood; in all things, except sin, like unto us; 
begotten before all ages of the Father, according to the 
Godhead, and in these latter days, for us and for our salva- 
tion, born of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, accord- 
ing to the Manhood; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, 
Only-begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, ‘incon- 
fusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably’; the dis- 
tinction of natures being by no means taken away by the 
union, but rather the property of each nature being pre- 
served and concurring in One Person and One Subsistence, 
not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the 
same Son, and only begotten God the Word, the Lord Jesus 
Christ; as the prophets from the beginning have declared 
concerning Him, and the Lord Jesus Christ Himself has 
taught, and the Creed of the Fathers has handed down to 
us, ”’ 

Marvelous! sublime! discriminating! Biblical! true! 
There we have the whole doctrine of the adorable person 
of our heavenly Lord and Savior. We can accept it 
con amore. Note the unity of the person, hence oneness of 
Self-consciousness; veritable Godhood (‘‘consubstantial 
with the Father’’) ; true Manhood (‘‘in all things, except 
sin, like unto us’’) ; the two natures in holy and most inti- 
mate union and communion, and yet without consubstan 
tiation (‘‘unconfused’’) ; without transubstantiation (‘‘un- 
changed’’) ; without separation in respect to place (‘‘in- 
divisible’) ; without separation in respect to duration 
(“‘inseparable’’). All the locé are beautifully correlated, 
and all apparent contradictions harmonized. Do we really 
need a restatement of the doctrine to put it in accord with 
the so-called ‘‘modern thought’’? If we do, let us have 
greater clearness, not greater confusion and ambiguity. 
We challenge the whole modernist school to make a restate- 


254 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


ment of Christology that will excel, or even equal, the 
statement of the old Chalcedonian Symbol. In comparison, 
Dr. Delk’s ‘‘restatement,’’ made either by himself or by 
the authors he quotes, is hazy, nebulous; above all, partial 
and one-sided. And why? Because he and his school have 
not gone to the ‘‘pure fountains of Israel,’’ the inspired 
Word of God, but to their own rationalistic thinking. 

Our author also criticizes the Lutheran doctrine of the 
communicatio idiomatum, or the communication of prop- 
erties in the person of Christ. He calls it ‘‘speculative.”’ 
But it is drawn from the Holy Scriptures, was taught by 
Luther, even if he did not use the term, and is advocated 
and defended in the Formula of Concord and by all our 
orthodox Lutheran theologians from Chemnitz and Ger- 
hard to Krauth, Jacobs, Valentine, Graebner and Blom- 
gren. This doctrine has been developed in the Lutheran 
Church in opposition to the Nestorian heresy, which so 
separated the divine and human natures as practically to 
divide the person of Christ. The dogma is a marvelous 
correlation of the whole Scriptural teaching on the person 
and natures of our Redeemer. Let us see if it is not so- 
There are three genera of the commumecatio rdiomatum. 
When Christ said, ‘‘The Son of Man hath power on earth 
to forgive sins,’’ He used one form of the Genus Idiomati- 
cum; that is, He predicated a divine attribute of the human 
concrete (the person viewed from the human side). When 
He said, ‘‘Father, glorify thou me with thine own glory, 
with the glory which I had with thee before the world was,”’ 
He employed the Genus Majestaticum; which means that 
the divine properties were communicated to the human 
nature. For other conspicuous examples of the same Genus 
see Matt. 28:18; 28:20; Col. 2:9. When Paul declared 
that ‘‘Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures’’ 
(1 Cor. 15:3), he made use of the Genus Apotelesmaticum, 


SOME THOUGHTS ON INCARNATION 255 


meaning that both the divine and human natures shared in 
the death of Christ; the human nature dying, and the 
divine nature sympathizing with it in its suffering, support- 
ing it through the ordeal, and giving infinite value and 
efficacy to the sacrifice. Call it ‘‘speculation,’’ if you will, 
it is all taught clearly in God’s Word. 

Some of our liberal friends do not believe in these ‘‘fine- 
spun distinctions,’’ as they call them. That is the trouble 
with the school; they seem to want to blur all distinctions. 
Is it because they do not have the mental acumen to see 
distinctions where there are differences, or have they in 
heart gone over to monistic pantheism, and yet have not 
the courage to say so? We should like to know what their 
philosophy is—dualism or monism. Let us remember the 
good old adage: Bene docet qui bene distinguit. 

Next our polemist dissents from the orthodox doctrine of 
the ‘‘two natures’’ in Christ, which, he asserts, ‘‘in its 
traditional form, imparts into the life of Christ an incred- 
ible and thorough-going dualism. In place of that perfect 
unity which is felt in every impression of Him, the whole 
is bisected by the fissure of distinction. No longer one, 
He is divided against himself.’’ 

Here he is wrong again. The distinction of natures 
taught by evangelical theology creates no schism in the 
person of Christ. ‘‘God was in Christ reconciling the 
world unto Himself.’’ It was the very purpose of the 
incarnation to bring the two natures into the most intimate 
and harmonious conjunction and relation, so that, when 
our humanity is united by regeneration and faith with 
Christ, it is truly, lovingly united with divinity again. 
The moral and spiritual gulf between God and man that 
was caused by sin has been bridged by the incarnation of 
the divine Son of God. Originally God and man were in 
loving spiritual communion; then sin came and broke that 


256 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


fellowship; but the Logos came and restored it in and 
through His incarnation and soteriological work. It cer- 
tainly is a beautiful, rational and organic method. There 
is nothing artificial and mechanical about it. 

Nor is it true that this conception introduces ‘‘into the 
life of Christ an incredible and thorough-going dualism.’’ 
There is no ‘‘bisecting,’’ no ‘‘fissure.’’ Just as before sin 
came into the world there was no schism between man’s 
body and soul, so there is no antagonism between the divine 
and human natures in the person of Christ. True dualism 
there is, just as there is dualism in man, who is composed 
of body and mind, but no opposition, no antinomy. It isa 
curious thing that some would-be modern thinkers cannot 
see that two different entities can be joined in a most 
beautiful harmony is a universe that God has made. If 
He could make two different substances, mind and matter, 
He certainly could so constitute them that they would 
blend into a perfect harmony, and that, too, without con- 
substantiation. So God could blend into a perfect union 
divinity and humanity in the one person of Christ without 
a consubstantiation of them. He who cannot believe that 
would better announce himself frankly as a pantheist. 

Again Dr. Delk: ‘‘The self-consciousness of Jesus, as 
depicted by the evangelists, we may call divine or human 
as we please; to express the whole truth, we must eall it 
both at once. But it is single consciousness after all; it 
moves always as a spiritual unity, and separatist or divisive 
theories do a grave disservice, not merely to clear thinking, 
but to religious truth and power. It hypostatizes falsely 
two aspects of a single concrete life,’’ and so on through a 
sentence that vapors off into obscurity. 

We deny point-blank that the last sentence quoted above 
states the truth. The evangelical doctrine of the two na- 
tures in Christ does not ‘‘hypostatize’’ them. If this writer 


SOME THOUGHTS ON INCARNATION 257 


uses the term ‘‘hypostatize’’ accurately, he means that the 
traditional view personalizes each nature in Christ, thus 
making Him two persons. In the name of reason, why 
should any one so distort history? Orthodox theology, 
from the days of the council of Nice to the present time, 
has always opposed the Nestorian doctrine of separating 
the two natures of Christ into two persons. On the con- 
trary, it has always insisted on the unity of the person in 
the two natures. Read all the ecumenical creeds and all the 
evangelical symbols, and see what the facts are. This is a 
marvelous thing—that a would-be modern thinker, who 
feels it his duty to restate Christian doctrine to bring it up 
to date, should accuse traditional theology of teaching the 
very heresy that it has always rejected with heart and soul. 

Our author also introduces confusion and error into his 
thesis when he represents the two natures in Christ as only 
‘‘two aspects of a single concrete life.’? That means that 
the two natures are merged into one nature, which is con- 
substantiation; and surely, surely he cannot believe that 
there was a consubstantiation of the divine and human 
natures in the person of Christ. Why, that was the old 
Eutychian and Monophysite heresy of the first three cen- 
turies of the Christian era, which was condemned by all the 
orthodox councils of those times. 

Next, we must enter the field of ontology, for our essayist 
leads us into these difficult and metaphysical spheres. On 
page 39 he quarrels with the idea of two natures ‘‘insep- 
arably joined together’’ in a person. ‘‘To put it frankly,”’ 
he says, ‘‘when we abstraet personality ... what we 
vaguely call ‘human nature’ is not human nature in the 
least. There is no such thing as an impersonal human 
nature. In earlier theology human nature is taken as real 
apart from personality—the manhood is anhypostatic.’’ 
This doctrine our protagonist rejects, and calls on Seeburg 
and Loofs to abet his views. 


258 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


We see no way but to think this matter through, difficult 
as it is. First, we think it a vague and indeterminate kind 
of philosophizing. If a ‘‘restatement’’ of doctrine means 
to substitute vagueness for the definite and comparatively 
simple statements of orthodox theology, we do not see that 
anything is to be gained. But, next, let us enter in medias 
res. ‘Take the proposition: Apart from personality there 
is no such thing as human nature. That is to confuse 
quality with substance, phenomenon with noumenon. Per- 
Sonality is a quality, not an entity, not a substance. Is it 
not clear that without substance, you could not have qual- 
ity; without the nowmena you could not have the phe- 
nomena? True, we do not know what substance is, but we 
do know intuitively that, if the world is not a mere phan- 
tasm and delusion, there must be something there, the thing 
in itself, the ontos, or there never could be the attributes of 
weight, force, light, life, consciousness, egoism or personal- 
ity. If there were no mental substance, there would be 
nothing to carry on thought processes. An absolute blank 
could not think; a piece of nothing could not feel or will. 
Figure it as you will, there must be ‘‘the thing in itself.’’ 
One of the best definitions of mind that we have ever seen 
was made by a recent scholar and philosopher: ‘‘Mind is 
self-conscious substance. ”’ 

Now, following the same kind of reasoning, we contend 
that there must be the substance of human nature, or there 
never could be human egoity. And God must have created 
the substance which He endowed with personality and all 
its other qualities. Therefore in the seminal depth of every 
human being there must lie the substance of human beings 
yet unborn, and therefore still impersonal, only awaiting 
the conditions of fertilization and procreation to be evolved 
into personal beings. There can be no ‘‘I’’ until conception 
(perhaps not until birth) has taken place. Only when the 


SOME THOUGHTS ON INCARNATION 259 


proper conjunction of the man and the woman occurs, is a 
new human ego born, but, it is born from the latent, sem- 
inal, and as yet impersonal substance of human nature 
carried down through the generations from the first human 
pair. There must be such a perduring human substance, 
or the race could not be perpetuated. 

Apply this reasoning to the person of our Lord. The 
divine Logos, a person from eternity, entered the seminal 
depth of the Virgin Mary, and took from her the substance 
of human nature, both psychical and somatic, purified it 
from all sin and corruption, and assumed it into His God- 
hood in that mysterious act which we reverently call the 
incarnation. The Logos was a person, and therefore had 
no need to add another person to Himself. He did not first 
produce a human person in the Virgin, and then unite 
Himself with it; but in the very act of assumption He took 
only human nature into His Deity. Yes, the human nature 
was ‘‘anhypostatic’’ before the incarnation, but in the 
umtio it became ‘‘enhypostatic,’’ receiving its personality 
from the divine Son of God. Why, it must have been so. 
Suppose for a moment that the Holy Ghost would have 
brought forth a human person, and then would have united 
it with the personal Logos, there would have been produced 
a being who was two persons; which would be a preposter- 
ous conception. It is not theologically correct, therefore, 
to say that the divine Logos assumed a human body and @ 
human soul, for then He would have taken a human person 
into His Godhead. We should say, He assumed. human 
nature in both parts,. psychical and somatic. 

Therefore, when the personal Logos assumed human na- 
ture, or, to put it more accurately, ensphered Himself in 
human nature, He became truly human, and hence could 
enter to the uttermost into the fellowship of all our joys 
and sorrows. It is the fact that the divine Son of God took 


260 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


our human nature into His very Deity that makes His com- 
panionship and sympathy so real and precious to us. The 
Bible way is always the right way, the profound way, the 
organic way. 

While revising the proofs of this book, an additional 
thought relative to the kenosis of the Logos comes to our 
mind. Why was the Son conceived by the Holy Ghost? 
Why did the Holy Spirit perform the act of the miraculous 
conception in the womb of the Virgin Mary? Why did not 
the Son Himself perform that sacred function? ‘There is 
always a divine rationality in the ways of God. It was the 
Son, not the Father or the Holy Spirit, who was to be 
passive in the act of incarnation, who was to make the 
great surrender; in other words, who was to empty Him- 
self, which is the meaning of the kenosis. Therefore the 
Son submitted willingly and sacrificially to the dominion 
of the Holy Spirit, who enwrapped and enshrined Him 
(the person of the Son) in human nature that He function 
in and through it for the purpose of human redemption. 
Thus the Son surrendered Himself gladly and completely 
to the will of the Father and to the brooding eare and 
guidance of the Holy Spirit. ‘‘Great is the mystery of 
godliness: He was manifest in the flesh’—Hsr, THE ADOR- 
ABLE AND ETERNAL SON OF Gop. 


CHAPTER XTIT 
@OD AND IMMORTALITY 


With Special Reference to Leuba’s Arguments and 
Findings 


RECENT investigations seem to indicate that mere human 
and worldly learning does not lead to belief in spiritual 
realities. Fundamentally the explanation may be that 
given by the apostle Paul: ‘‘Now the natural man receiv- 
eth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are fool- 
ishness unto him; and he cannot know them because they 
are spiritually judged’’ (1 Cor. 2:14). Perhaps it will be 
said that it is prejudging the case to make this excerpt 
from Paul; and, besides, some people may even think it 
ungenerous to charge academic men with lack of spiritual 
discernment; yet this must be said: we have never known 
a person who has accepted Christ by faith, and has thus 
received the witness of the Holy Spirit in his heart, to ques- 
tion the existence of God and the immortality of the soul. 
The assurance of the divine existence is based on the saying 
of Christ: ‘‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no 
man cometh unto the Father but by me’’ (John 14:6). The 
assurance of immortality results from an experience of 
this inspired statement: ‘‘These things have I written 
unto you that ye may know that ye have eternal life, even 
unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God”’ 
(1 John 5:13). Thus a simple Christian experience will 
solve the problems over which worldly wise men are vainly 
racking their minds. 

261 


262 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


However, when you are dealing with men to whom the 
spiritual and experiential appeal cannot be made, you must 
go to them where they are; you must meet them on their 
own arena, that of reason, science and philosophy. That is 
what we shall endeavor to do in this essay. 

Dr. James H. Leuba’s recent book, ‘‘The Belief in God 
and Immortality,’’ has created a good deal of stir, espe- 
cially in intellectual circles. It is little short of sensational ; 
not, however, because the subjects are so well reasoned, 
but because the author’s method is somewhat unique. He 
sent out questionnaires to some six hundred college people 
and others, asking them whether they believed in God and 
immortality, and in this volume their replies have been 
published (in part), tabulated, compared, and displayed in 
a somewhat spectacular way. The strange thing, indeed, 
the surprising thing, about this experiment is that, taken 
all in all, the majority of the respondents expressed non- 
belief in God and immortality. Moreover, this non-belief 
seems to grow more pronounced and definite the further 
advanced the respondents are in erudition. To make the 
matter clear, there were fewer college juniors and seniors 
who expressed belief in God and immortality than there 
were freshmen and sophomores. Among the more renowned 
historians, scientists and psychologists there was less belief 
than there was among those who were less well known. To 
sum up the findings of Prof. Leuba, we may put it thus: 
the more learning the less theistic belief. 

No doubt this display will be distressing to those who 
have never been truly converted. There are people who are 
greatly affected by exhibitions of human learning, and are 
apt to go with the crowd of scholastics, thinking them able 
to say the last word on almost all subjects. Upon this class 
the book will no doubt have a harmful effect, because they 
will want to decide these questions on the basis of human 
knowledge, instead of going to the true source of assurance 


GOD AND IMMORTALITY 263 


on spiritual matters, namely, Christ and His Word. And, 
indeed, in one respect the situation is alarming to the Chris- 
tian. Are our colleges and universities not only leading 
men and women to reject Christianity, but causing them to 
plunge into downright atheism? If so, are these academic 
institutions more harmful than beneficial? And does human 
learning profit the race? These are questions that well 
may ‘‘give us pause.’’* It certainly is time that the the- 
istic proofs be restated, defended and confirmed in such a 
way as to convince the minds of our educated and semi- 
educated men and women both in and out of college. A 
stalwart course in scientific Theism should be placed in the 
curriculum of every college in the land, and taught by an 
instructor who has both the spiritual mind and the requi- 
site mental equipment; one who knows the field, appre- 
ciates the danger, and holds to the higher ideals of life and 
destiny. 

We cannot help pausing here to inject an observation. 
Many good and sincere people have attributed the sad 
downfall of Germany in the late war to her prevalent 
rationalism, materialism, and other departures from the 
evangelical faith. That country, it is said, forsook God, 
and so God either punished it, or left it to its own 
devices. But if Leuba’s representations are true, what 
about America? If.atheism and agnosticism have affected 
our academic centers so seriously, how long will it be be- 


*In accepting this essay for publication in The Lutheran Church 
Review (October, 1917), the Editor, Professor T. E. Schmauk, D. D., 
LL.D., expressed much concern regarding the gravity of the situa- 
tion in our country resulting from the attitude of many of our 
colleges and universities and scientific teachers toward religion. He 
declared that it was indeed time for the Church to be awake to the 
crisis at hand. In a vigorous book entitled ‘‘The Menace of Mod- 
ernism,’’ the Rev. William B. Riley, D. D., of Minneapolis, Minn., 
has called attention to the liberalism that prevails in many of our 
academic institutions; and still more recently Rev. Dr. G. W. Me- 
Pherson has sounded the alarm in an eye-opening book, ‘‘ The Crisis 
in Church and College.’’ 


264 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


fore we are inundated by a wave of popular apostasy? 
Will God then give America up to her vain devices, and 
raise up some foreign nation to defeat and enslave us and 
our children and children’s children? Surely these reflec- 
tions, in the light of Professor Leuba’s findings, ought to 
cause us serious thought. It is also a matter for grave 
reflection that few scientists of the country, so far as we 
know, have made public protest against Leuba’s represen- 
tations. 

In this chapter it is our purpose to analyze somewhat 
critically the mental status and logical acumen of the so- 
called ‘‘representative American scholars’’ who express 
unbelief respecting God and immortality, to discover 
whether they show themselves competent to lead the world 
of thought on these vital and exalted themes. Are their 
scholarship and rationality so thorough-going, are their 
views so well digested, are their investigations so profound 
and comprehensive, as necessarily to command a large 
following among thinkers? 


The Learned Specialists and Their Views 


Passing, for the present, the replies of the college stu- 
dents who had part in this quiz, we will subject the replies 
of the representative American scholars to examination. 
They include historians, scientists (physical and biological), 


sociologists and psychologists. The table of comparative . 


percentages will help us to evaluate the opinions of these 
scholars. 

We note, first, that, of all these classes except the psy- 
chologists, more believe in God than in immortality. 
Among the historians 51.6 per cent. believe in immortality, 
while only 48.3 per cent. believe in God, a difference of 3.3 
per cent.; among the physical scientists the relative per 
cents. are 50.7 and 43.7 ; among the biologists, 37.7 and 30.5; 


GOD AND IMMORTALITY 265 


among the sociologists, 55.3 and 46.3. Note that among the 
scientists of both kinds the difference is 7 per cent.—that 
is, 7 per cent. more believe in immortality than believe in 
God. With the historians the disparity is 3 per cent., 
_ while with the sociologists it runs up to 9 per cent. We 
would respectfully ask what degree of rational acumen is 
_ exhibited by seven out of every hundred scientists and nine 
out of every hundred sociologists who reject the doctrine 
_ of the divine existence and yet cling to belief in personal 
Immortality (for Dr. Leuba’s questionnaire was respecting 
| personal immortality)? What order of mentality must 
' such men have? If there is no God, how can there be 
personal immortality for man? For if there is no God, the 
universe must be composed of only material substance; 
_ there can be no such thing as spiritual entity. But if there 
is nothing but material substance in the universe, there can 
_ be no personal immortality. We are puzzling over the con- 
ception of these 3 to 9 scholarly gentlemen concerning the 
_ human soul that they think it can be immortal in a purely 
_ material monistic cosmos. Is a person who can commit such 
_a hiatus in reasoning as to be an atheist, and yet believe 
In personal immortality, entitled to confidence when he gets 
out of his special field and pronounces judgment on matters 
that belong to the higher spiritual sphere? 

The psychologists differ from their fellow-savants in sev- 
eral respects. Of them only 24.2 per cent. believe in God, 
and only 19,8 per cent. believe in immortality, the disparity 
being 4.4 per cent. We cannot help wondering what kind 
of rational processes these 4.4 per cent. must carry on. 
What sort of a God would He be who would bring into 
existence rational and aspiring beings, and then, after 
they have spent a few years of earthly toil and struggle 
over many perplexing problems, blot them out of conscious 
existence for ever and ever? A God who could or would 
find pleasure in doing such things would surely not be 


266 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


worth believing in. Atheism would be better than such. 
deistic belief. 

Next, we would remark that these statistics do not re- 
flect much eredit on the psychologists of the country. Ob- 
serve that they rank the lowest in theistic belief and in 
belief in immortality. Nor is the above the worst showing 
they make; for the table shows that the more eminent psy- 
chologists tip the seale at only 13.2 per cent. for belief in 
God and only 8.8 per cent. for belief in immortality. Those 
of less note mark respectively 32.1 and 29.9 per cent. The 
average is 24.2 and 19.8 per cent. These figures afford food 
for serious reflection. Think of it for a moment. Among 
the more eminent psychologists only 13.2 out of every hun- 
dred express belief in God’s existence, making 86.8 of them 
out of every hundred atheists or agnostics; and, worse yet, 
91.2 out of every hundred reject the doctrine of personal 
immortality ! 

Pray what is the matter with the psychologists of the 
country? Have they been spending more time in dissect- 
ing human brains than in studying the noble faculties of the 
human mind? Have they become physiologists instead of 
psychologists? Have they come to think in terms of materi- 
alism rather than in terms of mentality? Is it not marvel- 
ous that a class of scholars who deal with the royal powers 
of the human mind, its intellect, its sensibilities, its will, 
its conscience faculty, its theistic faculty, its ability to con- 
ceive of the infinite and eternal, its natural longing for 
God and immortality—is it not marvelous that this class 
of men, of all men in the world, should go over to atheism 
and materialism, and should deny an immortal destiny to 
the human soul? Have they actually accepted the crass 
theory of materialism, that thought is only a secretion of 
the brain as bile is a secretion of the liver? If this statis- 
tical table is a true index of the trend to-day, it is time we 
were getting back to the noble science of psychology pure 


GOD AND IMMORTALITY 267 


and simple. We wish to register our admiration for and 
- confidence in the 24.2 per cent. who hold to belief in God 
and the 19.8 per cent. who have not abandoned belief in 
immortality to serve the mammon of materialistic physi- 
ology. Cannot psychologists see that mental and material 
| phenomena belong to entirely different categories? <A 
| thought, which is a mental product, is not a material sub- 
_ stance like bile, which is the product of the action of the 
liver. Material substance has no consciousness; mental 
| substance has. Material substance cannot initiate motion; 
_ mental substance can. The former cannot think and plan 
' and purpose; the latter can. The former cannot will and 
_ choose; the latter can. The former has no moral sense, no 
spiritual aspiration and experience; the latter has. While 
the mind and the brain are vitally connected and related, 
they are different quiddities, because their functions and 
_ phenomena are fundamentally different. You cannot trans- 
late consciousness, emotion, volition and conscience into 
_ terms of material substance and mechanical force. What 
| the majority of the above psychologists need is to learn to 
think in terms of mentality and spirituality instead of in 
terms of materiality; that is, they need to get rid of their 
crassness. 

Another interesting point is the disparity of the opinions 
collated in this list of ‘‘representative American scholars.’’ 
Take, first, the divergence between the physical and biologi- 
cal scientists: of the former 43.9 per cent. believe in God; 
of the latter only 30.5 per cent.; a difference of 13.4 per 
cent. That is rather a large disparity. At all events, it is 
far from a consensus. Why this difference? The physical 
scientists, for the most part, deal with physics, chemistry 
and mathematics—that is, with dead things; while the biol- 
ogists deal with living organisms. Of course, along the 
frontiers these sciences must overlap considerably. Yet we 
cannot help wondering what there is about the data of these 


268 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


two scientific fields to cause 13.4 more out of every hundred 
of the one class than of the other to believe in God. Are 
the wonders of living organisms less impressive than the 
wonders of chemical affinity? Can it be that some scien- 
tists fail to see God in a living cell, while others see him 
in the electrons, atoms and molecules that compose the 
cell? Surely these differences and incongruities greatly 
minimize the value of the conclusions of these scientists. 
If their investigations give them any actual worth, there 
ought to be greater unanimity among them. You take a 
thousand Christians who have had a real experience of 
salvation through Jesus Christ, and you will find them a 
unit on the existence of God, and a personal, loving and 
holy God at that. Talk about diversities of opinion among 
Christian people! Why, they are a happy and united 
family compared with the scientists. 

In regard to immortality precisely 13 per cent. more 
physicists than biologists believe in it. What is there about 
physics, chemistry and mathematics to cause people to be- 
lieve in the immortality of the soul, while biology leads a 
good many more to the opposite conclusion? To our mind, 
there is no rational explanation of this divergence of opin- 
ion, except the subjective and undigested speculations of 
the scientists themselves; for if their conclusions were based 
on real scientific data, there surely would be greater una- 
nimity of view among them. 

Let us make another comparison, this time between the 
historians and the psychologists. Of the historians 48.3 
per cent. are theists, while the psychologists fall below 24.2 
per cent., a difference of 24.1 per cent. The former deal 
with the workings of the human mind in history, in the 
movements and progress of the race; the latter deal with 
the human mind through direct observation of its fune- 
tions and experiences. Yet there are twice as many the- 
ists among the historians as among the psychologists. Why 


GOD AND IMMORTALITY 269 


the difference? Is there anything about the data with 
which the historian deals that would tend to make him 
more theistic in his convictions than the psychologist who 
deals with a somewhat different class of data? This large 
disparity between the two classes proves that their con- 
clusions are not based on rational inductions from observed 
facts, but only on subjective and a priori conjectures. 

_ On the subject of immortality the historians and psy- 
_ chologists differ still more widely—31.7 per cent. Think 
of that diversity—31.7 more historians than psychologists 
out of every one hundred believe in the immortality of the 
soul. If ‘‘representative American scholars,’’ working their 
minds vigorously, cannot come nearer an agreement on 
immortality, we do not feel that their wisdom is acute 
enough to command our confidence. Take as many Chris- 
tian men and women, such as have had a genuine experience 
of God’s reality and grace through Jesus Christ, and they 
would be an absolute unit on both the existence of God and 
the immortality of the soul. Talk about the differences 
among Christian people! 

Another comparison is interesting. Of the sociologists 
46.3 per cent. believe in God and 55.3 per cent. believe in 
immortality. The historians are ahead of the sociologists 
2 per cent. on belief in God, while the latter exceed the 
former 3.5 per cent. on belief in immortality. Thus these 
Scholars go see-sawing back and forth, their opinions deter- 
Mined by no apparent guiding principle. 

A still greater dissonance appears among these scholars 
when we take into consideration the percentage of atheists 
and agnostics. Begin with the historians. Of the ‘‘lesser’’ 
ones 63 per cent. believe in God, leaving 37 per cent. who 
are atheistic or agnostic. A very small per cent, are agnos- 
tics, perhaps 2 per cent. Of the ““greater’’ ones 32.9 per 
cent. believe in God, leaving one-half, or 50 per cent., athe- 
istic, and the rest agnostical or doubtful. So there you have 


270 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


it—out of 100 of these great scholars and thinkers, selected 
expressly on account of their eminency in the world of re- 
search, 32.9 believe in a personal God, 50 do not, and 17.1 
do not know what they believe. Here is plenty of theespice 
of variety; the showing certainly indicates anything but 
unanimity of opinion. Suppose Christian people differed 
so widely in their views about God, what would the world 
say? Would the people of the world have any confidence 
whatever in Christianity? Why, then, should they have 
faith in the zpse dixits of these scientific gentry? Yet you 
may go the world over among truly converted Christians, 
and you will find them of one accord to the last man re- 
specting the existence of a personal God. Talk about divi- 
sions among Christians! 

Among the other scholars who had a part in this ques- 
tionnaire there was practically the same amount of diver- 
gence of opinion. It is sad to contemplate that the minority 
of all classes of scholars believe in God; or, to put it posi- 
tively, the majority were either atheists or agnostics. This 
is not a very encouraging showing for secular scholarship 
—that it should go so far astray on the most noble and 
exalted subject of human thought; for we take it that no 
other conception is so vital, so paramount, as the doctrine 
of the divine existence. For if there is a God who created 
and controls the universe, He must be good, wise and 
all-powerful; then all will be well with those who believe 
in Him and do His will, and some time all their problems, 
no matter how perplexing, will be solved. But if there is 
no God, the world is indeed a riddle; and the worst of it is, 
we shall soon die and perish with the brutes and the weeds, 
and our riddle will never, never, never have a solution. 
What a small outlook has the man who rejects God and 
eternal destiny! 

With regard to the believers in these lists, it is fair to say 
that, most likely, all of them have either had a definite 


i 
| 
i 
q 
4 


GOD AND IMMORTALITY 271 


Christian experience, or, if not, are men of high ethical 
ideals, which demand a personal God as the ultimate ground 
of right. They are perhaps believers, not because they are 
scientists and scholars, but because they are Christians and 
thorough-going ethicists. If this is a fact—and its factual 
probability is very great—it will still further reduce the 
value of merely human science and speculation regarding 
spiritual matters; for James Martineau well said: ‘‘Man 
does not believe in immortality because he has proved it ; 
but he is ever trying to prove it, because he cannot help 
believing it.’? The same epigram will apply to man’s at- 
tempts to prove the existence of God. 


The Questionnaire to College Students 


The author submitted four questions to all the non- 
technical students of ‘‘nine colleges of high rank’’ (author’s 
language), and one normal school. We observe (p. 186) 
that 927 answers were received from the four classes 
(Freshmen, Sophomores, Juniors and Seniors) of those 
““nine colleges of high rank.’’? If you divide 927 by 9, you 
will have 103, showing that those ““nine colleges of high 
rank’’ had an average of only that many non-technical stu- 
dents, and each class averaged about 21 members. It does 
not strike us that those ‘‘colleges of high rank’’ were very 
large institutions; or perhaps we do not understand! The 
author says (top of page 186): ‘‘These data have special 
value, because every student of the class, when the ques- 
tionnaire was distributed, answered.’’ Moreover, it turns 
out (same page) that 289 of the answers from these young 
college people were from men and 638 from women, while 
78 were from students of a normal school. 

We must examine the questions which our professor in- 
flicted upon those innocent and undeveloped young people. 
The first question, ‘‘Do you think of God as a personal or 


272 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


an impersonal being?’’ perhaps cannot be objected to. The 
second question, however, is certainly open to objection: 
‘‘What difference do you make between a personal and im- 
personal being?’’ There are many persons, both in and 
out of college, who know the difference by intuition, but 
when you ask them to define the precise distinction, they are 
not able to give a clear-cut reply. Unless one has studied 
psychology—and doubtless many of these students had not 
—one has not yet learned the technical terms employed to 
define personality. Moreover, the most learned man would 
be greatly embarrassed if you were to ask him to tell you 
precisely what personality is. We know, but it is hard to 
define. You know what truth is; but define truth. You 
know what virtue is; but define virtue. The reply might 
be made that a person is any being who can say “‘I.’’ True 
enough—but what is ‘‘I’’? The things that we know by 
intuition are the very ones that it is impossible to define. 
So we think our professor took an unfair advantage of 
those ‘‘naive’’. young folks when he asked them to give the 
distinction between a personal and an impersonal being. 
But look at his third question: ‘‘Describe as fully as 
you can how, under what image, or images, you think of 
God. Distinguish here between what in your description 
is for you merely an image, a form of speech, and what is 
the reality.’’ Now think of asking a number of young 
collegians to describe, and that ‘‘as fully as you can,’’ the 
image they form of God in their minds when they think 
of Him! Why did not this astute professor require them 
to describe as fully as they could the image they form of 
the universal ether of space, or of an electron, or an atom? 
Why did he not ask them what is the shape of the mind, 
or the color of a thought, or the dimensions of heroism? 
Of every concrete or abstract truth we instinctively form 
a mental image; we cannot help it; but when we are asked 
to describe or define, in many, many cases we are unable. 


GOD AND IMMORTALITY 273 


So it is with our conception of God. Perhaps most of us 
conceive of Him as having something like a human form, 
but whether that is correct or not we do not know; perhaps 
we will not know until we receive the beatific vision. How- 
ever, we need not trouble ourselves about the precise form 
of God, for we do not know even the shape of our minds or 
souls. We cannot tell what space is, nor time. What is 
electricity, Mr. Edison? Hear his modest reply: ‘‘ With all 
my years of study and experimentation, I do not know 
whether electricity is a substance or only a force.’? Now 
think of a college professor asking a number of school boys 
and ‘girls to describe the form’ of God! 

The replies of the young people are quite interesting. 
Some of them are quite good; occasionally one of them is 
surprisingly profound; but, of course, a number of them 
are crude and indeterminate, showing that youthful minds 
must have time to develop before they are able to answer 
metaphysical questions. That the second question was too 
difficult is proved by the fact that some of the respond- 
ents declared that they believed God to be both personal 
and impersonal. All in all, the answers of the young col- 
legians are not so far astray as might be expected. 82 
per cent. of the women expressed faith in a personal God; a 
small number, perhaps 10 per cent., believed that God is 
impersonal; a smaller number yet were ‘‘doubters,’’ and 
a still smaller number conceived of God as both personal 
and impersonal. The young men did not rank so high 
as the young women in theistic belief, only 56 per cent. 
of them holding the doctrine of a personal God, leaving 
44 per cent. to be otherwise accounted. And here is the 
Surprising fact: by far the larger number of the 44 per 
cent.—probably 31 per cent.—expressed belief in an imper- 
sonal God, which indicates just what clear conceptions 
they must entertain regarding personality. We should like 
to know under just what ‘‘image or images’’ these young 


274 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


men think of their impersonal God. Indeed, while we re- 
member the point, we should like to ask Prof. Leuba ‘‘under 
what image or images’’ he conceives of that wonderful and 
inscrutable Power that works in the cosmos, and brings 
personal, rational, moral and spiritual beings lke us men 
into existence. Is that supreme Power in the form of a 
man, or a globe, or a cube, or an ellipse? He surely must 
admit that there is such a Power. 

Prof. Leuba tries to account for the fact that more 
women than men believe in God. He says: ‘‘This greater 
variation from tradition on the part of the men is one of 
the striking features of these records. It must be referred 
on the whole, I think, to a stronger impulse to self-affirma- 
tion and freedom, and to a correlated lesser need of affec- 
tion and of moral support felt by the men.’’ 

This is a pretty cheap and superficial way of accounting 
for the difference. One might ask why women are so con- 
stituted as to have less self-affirmation and more need of af- 
fection and moral support than the men. As a rule, men 
are willing to admit that their mothers, sisters and wives 
are superior morally and spiritually to themselves, and they 
admit it, not out of mere gallantry, but because they know 
that it is true. If that is true, as it is, it 1s a cogent argu- 
ment in favor of the conviction that belief in a personal 
God is a higher and nobler order of belief than are athe- 
ism and agnosticism. We should like to ask, too, whether 
the greater ‘‘need of affection and of moral support”’ felt 
by the women is creditable or discreditable to them. If the 
former, as every right-minded person must admit, it is an- 
other argument in favor of the superior moral character 
of theistic belief. Prof. Leuba cannot reply that woman 
is the ‘‘weaker vessel,’? and not endued with as strong in- 
tellectuality as man, for the replies which he publishes in 
his own book prove that the women exhibited just as much 
reasoning power and depth of thought as the men, and in 


GOD AND IMMORTALITY 275 


some Gases were more profound, and especially more defi- 
nite. Once for all, we desire to say that it is to the credit 
of Christianity and theistic belief that more women than 
men accept them. As a rule, you will find more men than 
women in our penitentiaries! You will find more women 
than men in our churches! Significant, is it not? 

In commenting on the replies of his respondents, Prof. 
Leuba usually betrays his own unbelieving convictions. He 
gives a special coloring to the remarks of the students, or 
makes his own glosses on them. As a rule, he tries to be- 
little the orthodox replies with disparaging remarks and 
explains every case of doubt as favorable to his own view. 
On page 218, in commenting on the naive responses, he ob- 
serves: ‘“These figures would refute the accusation that 
some might be inclined to direct against colleges for indoc- 
trinating their students. They indicate, rather, how distress- 
ingly uninterested and ignorant these ‘cultivated’ young 
people are regarding what is commonly considered a great 
religious issue. The preceding section shows that they are 
equally naive with regard to the conception of God.’’ On 
the next page: ‘‘We should hardly have expected to find 
30 per cent. of the juniors and seniors in a Christian col- 
lege unable to profess belief in immortality, and a consider- 
able additional number evidently indifferent to it. This 
situation points to a very profound change now taking 
place in the convictions of our educated young people re- 
garding a belief usually considered vital to Christianity.’’ 

Our reply is, Christianity is not a matter of mere intel- 
lectual opinion and ratiocination, but of deep inner spir- 
itual experience that cannot be forced upon any one; and 
so, if parents, teachers and ministers fail to bring their 
young people into experimental relation to Christ, they will 
simply go on in their unspiritual way. The findings of 
Prof. Leuba ought to sound the note of warning to all our 
Christian institutions to make their teaching more posi- 


276 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


tively theistic and Christian. That is one good thing that 
may result from our professor’s questionnaires. 

To show the author’s one-sidedness in commenting on 
these answers, we quote the following from page 212: ‘‘I 
shall merely remark that those who think their belief in 
God essential have not had occasion to test their conviction; 
whereas those who think themselves morally independent 
of the belief and who also disclaim the belief, that is, nearly 
the whole of the 43 per cent., may be said to have demon- 
strated their moral independence of the belief in God.”’ 
To this inadequate kind of reasoning we would reply that 
it is not likely that young people from 18 to 25 have demon- 
strated anything of the kind. As a rule, there come experi- 
ences later in life when faith in God is felt to be a necessity, 
especially for those who have real moral earnestness. 

We cannot help calling attention to a remark on page 
188: ‘*Stupendous ignorance is the price paid by our youth 
for the absence of teaching and guidance. The situation 
cannot be improved until traditional and no longer teach- 
able beliefs have been replaced in the confidence of public 
opinion by others in agreement with modern knowledge.”’ 

And yet, as we have shown in a previous division of 
our argument, “‘modern knowledge,’’ according to Prof. 
Leuba’s conception, has not led to any consensus among 
Secular scholars on the two basic issues of God and immor- 
tality! To make this clear, let the reader remember that 
of the physical scientists 40 per cent. believe in immortality ; 
about 18 per cent. reject immortality, and the rest—42 
per cent.—are marked agnostics or doubters. How far 
will Prof. Leuba’s marvelous ‘‘modern knowledge’’ 20, at 
that rate, toward giving our young people clear and definite 
convictions? Well may they ask, ‘‘Who are right, the 40 
per cent., the 18 per cent., or the 42 per cent.?’’ If these 
young people want to find a real consensus of conviction 


GOD AND IMMORTALITY a (ie 


‘on God and immortality, they must go to true Christian 
people. 


Value of the Specialist’s Testimony 


This will be our next inquiry—the value of the special- 
ist’s testimony respecting these great moral and spiritual 
problems. Instance the chemist, who deals with certain 
kinds of material data. If he does not take a thousand 
other facts into account, how much value would his re- 
searches into the constituent elements of matter be in deter- 
mining great moral problems? How much morality would 
he find in oxygen, hydrogen and carbon? How much spir- 
ituality in H,O? By his mere manipulation of chemical 
elements in retorts, crucibles and test tubes, would he be 
able to obtain a world-view, a cosmology, a theology ? Chem- 
istry alone, being only a small segment of the whole sphere 
of human knowledge, does not render a man competent 
to judge of philosophical and metaphysical matters. The 
Same may practically be said of all the other specialists 
named in this symposium. 

At this point another questionnaire might be pertinent: 
How many of these specialists have ever read and digested 
a first-class work on the theistic arguments, or a system of 
Christian theology, doctrinal or ethical? There are Flint’s 
great works, ‘“‘Theism’’ and ‘‘Anti-Theistic Theories,’’ 
which are classics on the subject; and there is Samuel’ 
Harris’s monumental work, ‘‘The Philosophical Basis of 
Theism ;’’ how many of Dr. Leuba’s catechumens ever mas- 
tered those works, or works of equal importance? How 
many of them have given serious attention to Ebrard’s 
**Christian Apologetics,’’? or Orr’s ‘‘The Christian View 
of God and the World,”’ or Fisher’s ‘‘ The Grounds of The- 
istic and Christian Belief’’?? How many of them have even 
seen or heard of Dr. Martensen’s massive work on ‘‘ Chris- 
tian Ethics’? Until they have studied these or similar 


278 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


works of equal caliber to lift them out of their very much 
circumscribed specialties, their competency to pronounce 
final judgment on theological problems may well be inter- 
rogated: 


The Theistic Arguments 


Space will not permit us to unfold them and show their 
logical value. The usual theistic arguments are the Gen- 
eral, the Teleological, the Cosmological, the Ontological, and 
the Moral (some theists add the Esthetic). In the interest 
of brevity we shall simply indicate the logical force of the 
Cosmological Argument, or the argument from causality. It 
is based on the fundamental principle that every effect or 
event must have an adequate cause, and that no effect can 
be greater than, nor essentially different from, its cause. 
These are principles that the mind accepts intuitively, 
though they are founded on the observation of sufficient em- 
pirical experimentation to prove the mind’s intuitions to be 
correct. If you cannot trust the mind in such things, then 
no confidence can be placed in any of its operations, and 
the thinking of Dr. Leuba’s specialists is just as futile as 
all other human thinking. 

Now apply the causal principle to personality. There 
are persons in the world to-day. You and I are persons. 
We have self-consciousness; we can say ‘‘I.’’ But the per: 
sonal never could have evolved from the non-personal, 
because then the effect would be greater than the cause 
and essentially different from it. Therefore in order to 
have an adequate cause for the personalities that are in 
the world, you must put a personality back of and into the 
world to create or evolve them. 

Apply the same principle to rationality. We are ration- 
al beings; but the rational never could have evolved, by 
means of merely resident forces, out of the non- rational, for 
that again would make the effect greater than its cause, 


GOD AND IMMORTALITY 279 


therefore the Power that brought rational beings into exist- 
ence must itself be rational; but rationality can be predi- 
cated only of persons; therefore the Supreme Power must 
be a Person. 

Just once more, combining the Cosmological and the 
Moral proofs: There are moral beings in the world to-day, 
and have been for unknown ages. But the moral never 
could have evolved out of the non-moral, for that again 
would be contrary to the law of causality; therefore the 
Power that gave existence to moral beings must itself be 
moral. But you can predicate moral qualities only of 
rational persons; not of mere things; therefore the Supreme 
Power must be a Rational Person—God. Have Dr. 
Leuba’s eminent specialists ever canvassed seriously these 
lines of thought, which penetrate to the foundation of all 
realities? They must get out of their ruts; they must get 
a world-view; they must make an induction of all the facts, 
physical, mental, moral and spiritual, if they are going 
to arrive at satisfying conclusions. 

At the close of so long a chapter we cannot indulge in 
preachment, although we feel almost in conscience bound 
to do so. We will simply add that we believe it would be 
a calamity to society and the nation if the majority of men 
and women should turn atheists and agnostics. It would 
speedily undermine the foundations of virtue and respon- 
sibility, because, if there is no moral Personality back of 
and in the world, there is no proper ground for moral dis- 
tinctions. We believe with that great and good man, Gold- 
win Smith, who said: ‘‘The denial of the existence of 
God and of a future state is, in a word, the dethronement 
of conscience.’’ Men may not realize this result at once, 
but sooner or later moral deterioration must take place. ‘‘If 
the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do’’ 
(Psalm 11:3)? ‘‘ Righteousness and justice are the founda- 
tions of His throne’’ (Psalm 97:2)—that is, of God’s 


280 CONTENDING FOR, THE. FAITH 


throne. Eliminate God, and what becomes of the ethical 
foundations of the universe? Let us ponder long and 
solemnly as an American people before we give up our 
theistic faith, and open wide the floodgates of moral 
anarchy. 


CHAPTER XIV 
DOES NATURE MAKE PROGRESS ? 


A Criticism on Evolution 


Now-a-DAys the idea of evolution seems to have taken 
a powerful hold on the scientific and popular mind, or, to 
be more accurate, the popular and scientific imagination. 
It is therefore patent to search into the matter, to see 
whether the natural realm which we know to-day possesses 
anything like a marked and irresistible tendency to make 
improvement, to pass from lower to higher forms. Is the 
law of progression plainly written on nature’s pages as 
we may read them to-day? 

None of us would dispute the general evidences of geol- 
ogy. We cannot and will not deny that in the geological 
ages there was a movement from the lower to the higher 
stages of existence. First came the oblique forms of life, 
which were obviously vegetable; then the primal forms of 
animal life; then the higher forms; lastly man himself, like 
a crown upon the pedestal of creation. That this general 
law of upward movement prevailed in the remote pre- 
historic past no one would be so foolish as to deny. 

However, two things need to be said about this progres- 
sive movement in pre-historic times. First, the general 
law described is precisely in harmony with the Biblical 
narrative of creation, which outlines most graphically the 
process from primeval chaos, when the earth was waste and 
void, to the beginning of life and up to the finished product, 
man. Second, geology by no means shows a gradual and 

281 


282 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


uniform scale of progress from the lower to the higher 
types. On the contrary, there are many leaps and gaps, 
some of them of tremendous width and depth. For in- 
stance, when the fishes first appear in the Devonian age, 
they are perfect fishes, not mere links in a graduated scale 
in which one form merges into another without leaving 
a distinguishable line of cleavage.* Many of the geological 
animals were great mastodons as perfect In organism as 
any animals we have to-day and some of them much more 
powerful. The first geological man ever found was, to all 
intents and purposes, a fully developed human being, phys- 
ically considered, with a skull, as Mr. Huxley said, that 
might have been the skull of a philosopher. Note also the 
same admission by Mr. Roosevelt in his Oxford address in 
A911! 

Now, it is often said that Biblical interpreters change 
their explanations of the Bible to suit the facts as science 
discovers them. But Bible men are not the only ones— 
scientific men do the same thing. Seeing that nature in the 
geological cycles often made progress by leaps and bounds, 
the scientists have introduced a new term into their evolu- 
tion theory—‘‘mutation.’’ And now this term is used for 
all and more than it is worth, just as the terms, ‘‘natural 
selection’’ and the ‘‘survival of the fittest,’’ have been and 
still are employed. But no one has stepped forward to tell 
us why nature makes these tremendous saltations, or where 
the tendency comes from. Perhaps it is to balk the evolu- 
tionists in their desperate efforts to find the ‘‘missing 
links!’’ Permit me to ask, Does not this disposition of 
nature to bound along like a great kangaroo rather point 
to the Bible view of special creations than to the theory of 


* There is no evidence, either in geology or in modern science, of 
what is known as the ‘‘transmutation of species’’—that is, that one 
species is changed into another by an evolutionary process. See the 
admissions of scientists of all schools as recited in Kelley’s ‘‘The 
Rational Necessity of Theism.’’ 


DOES NATURE MAKE PROGRESS? 983 


natural evolution? Indeed, is it not illogical to speak about 
evolution going by prodigious ‘‘mutations’’? Surely, surely, 
a big leap from a lower form to a perfect higher form with- 
out any intermediaries cannot consistently be called evolu- 
tion. It certainly breaks the continuity in natural processes 
that the evolution theory demands. Then why hold on toa 
term that has become antiquated ? 

Let us now look at nature as she is to-day and has been 
since the beginning of history. First, we would remark 
that the Bible tells us that when God had finished the ere- 
ation, He pronounced it good, ceased creating, and ‘‘rested’”’ 
from His creative work. This would point to a finished 
work so far as making new things is concerned—a work 
in which certain fixed laws would dominate; in which there 
would be reproduction of the types already created, in 
accordance with the fiat, ‘‘Increase and multiply,’’ but in 
which new and higher forms would not appear. Does not 
this agree with nature as we know her to-day? Do we see 
of progress written large and plain on nature’s 
\ Do we not rather see the law of stability, of 
persistency.of form and type? Which of these laws, we 
would insist, bulks the more largely and explicitly on the 
pages of nature’s realm? 

Looking at nature as we know her since the dawn of his- 
tory, we find no law of progress clearly stamped upon her 
operations. If any new species have been introduced—and 
it is very doubtful—they have not been higher forms, but 
the low forms of insect pests. All animals in the natural 
state are just the same now as they were from three to 
six thousand years ago; the lion is still a lion, not an im- 
proved breed; the elephant still an elephant; the giraffe 
still the same long-necked beast; and even the monkeys of 
to-day are precisely like those pictured and described in 
Egypt three or four thousand years ago; moreover, certain 
forms of lower animal life are precisely the same to-day as 


284 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


they were far back in the geological ages, as is indicated 
by their fossil remains; no advancement, no progress, no 
evolution ; simply reproduction and the most stubborn per- 
sistency of type. Now this is our pointed inquiry: If the 
law of progress is the palmary law of nature, why has it 
become inoperative since the beginning of human history, 
that is, since the era when it could be really tested by 
human research? Surely a law which is made to account 
for almost everything that we have at present in nature 
ought not to be so shy and inactive to-day, and even so 
obscure and elusive as to be incapable of empirical proof. 
It ought to be writ large and plain everywhere on the pages 
of nature’s marvelous book. If evolution ever was the chief 
law of the world, why did it resign its primacy ? 

There are other laws, however, that do stand out on 
nature’s pages like raised letters on a tablet. What are 
some of them? The laws of stability, of persistency and 
reproduction of type. There they are inscribed on the 
surface, clear and plain, so that everybody may read as he 
runs, scientist and layman alike. So far as we know, no 
distinct species ever cross, or if there is one exception, 
namely, the horse and the ass, the hybrid product, the mule, 
becomes sterile—just enough of an apparent exception to 
establish and emphasize the general rule. Nor is that all. 
So anxious does nature seem to be to preserve and teach the 
law of stability of type that, as soon as humanly cultured 
breeds of animals and varieties of fruits and cereals are 
left to their own way, they invariably begin to revert to 
their original inferior forms. Let people simply neglect 
their farms, gardens and orchards for several generations, 
and note how great the retrogression will be. The same 
would be true if their horses, cattle, sheep and farmyard 
fowls were neglected. Let us imagine for a moment that 
the whole human family were decimated. What then would 
become of the natural world, so far as we know the proc- 


: 
| 
: 


DOES NATURE MAKE PROGRESS? = 285 


esses of nature? After a time it would be converted— 
nay, it would convert itselfi—into a howling wilderness. 
Study nature where you will to-day, and you will find the 
law of change written plainly, it is true, but nowhere the 
law of progress. No; nature left to herself takes no for- 
ward steps. The invariable law, written plain as day 
everywhere, is reproduction of species. growth to maturity, 
then decay, by and by death, then reproduction again from 
the seed or plant—a ceaseless round. If no new external 
power touches nature, she will ‘‘go on forever,’’ like Tenny- 
son’s brook, only to come back time and again to the same 
point. We repeat for emphasis that, if progressive evolu- 
tion is the ‘preponderant law of nature, the great law or 
force that has brought,the cosmos to its present status, 
it ought by all means to be in-evidence to-day ; nay, it ought 
to be the most conspicuous force now in operation. But 
what do we see at the present time? Instead of holding 
that position, it is so negligible a power that even many 
of the most competent physical scientists to-day cannot 
discern it, and’ nobody can prove that it is operative. 
And now I wish to present an argument—one that, so far 
as I know, is new—why evolution ought not, in the divine 
economy, to have been made the dominating law of nature. 
Had it been the regnant principle, nature would have been 
in a State of flux, of instability, of constant change, so that 
man could never rely upon her. The farmer could not be 
sure, when he sowed wheat in the autumn, that his field 
would produce wheat the next harvest. The same would 
be true of every effort he made to reproduce his grain, fruit, 
vegetables and stock. But as nature has been constituted, 
he can depend upon her uniform laws; he can plan for the 
future; he knows that nature, being stable, will be true to 
herself, and will abet his efforts. So firm'is nature, so much 
is she his friendly co-operant, that she will even preserve 
the specific variety of beasts, fruits and grain that his in- 


286 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


genuity has produced through selective inter-breeding and 
crossing. So beneficial to man, therefore, is this law of 
stability of type in nature’s fecund processes, that it affords 
strong evidence of a divine teleology in the plan of the 
world. Thus facts agree with the teaching of the Holy 
Scriptures, which declare that, in the creation of the cos- 
mos, God made all vegetables and animals to reproduce 
‘‘after their kind.’? How much more benign are God’s 
ways than the ways of speculative science! 

And now, in the interest of thoroughness, we must reply 
to a counter-argument that a thoughtful student once 
brought forward in our college class-room. No difficulty 
ought ever to be evaded, for truth should always be the 
desideratum. After we had declared that science had not 
yet proved by empirical experiment or observation that one 
species had ever been transmuted by natural processes into 
another, our student rejoined acutely: ‘You cannot prove 
the theory of special creations empirically, either.’’ We 
recognize the force of this reply. It must be dealt with; it 
eannot be evaded. 

Let it be frankly admitted that the doctrine of special 
creations cannot be proved by physical experimentation. 
We have no means in our laboratories of demonstrating that 
there ever were special creations or that there are at pres- 
ent. The theologian and the scientist must join in admit- 
ting this fact. Therefore, to be entirely frank and open- 
minded, we must admit that physical science can demon- 
strate neither the doctrine of special creations nor the 
doctrine of the evolution of species by resident forces. So 
far as science can carry us, both of these views are only 
hypotheses. There is no more empirical evidence of the 
transmutation of species than there is of divine creation. 
Thus science can make no assertions either way. 

What shall be done in such a case? For one thing we 
must try to discover which method is the more reasonable, 


DOES NATURE MAKE PROGRESS? = 287 


creation or evolution. Let us see. The exponent of evolu- 
tion holds that in nature the all-dominating law is progres- 
sive development by means of resident forces. If that is 
true, it is reasonable to believe that this law should be the 
dominant law to-day, because, the evolutionist maintains, 
it has brought the cosmos to its present status. But, as has 
been seen, stability of type is the most powerful law to- 
day—the law that is written most plainly on the face of 
nature. Now, no good reason, either ethical or otherwise, 
ean be given why this law should have resigned its suzer- 
ainty as soon as human history and science began, at the 
very time when men have an opportunity to test it. 

With regard to the doctrine of the special divine creation 
of species and types the same kind of reasoning does not 
hold. No advocate of this doctrine contends that special 
creation is the one and only law that prevails in the cosmos. 
On the other hand, we hold that God in the beginning 
created the world, and after that ceased the work of cre- 
ation, but unfolded the cosmos that He had brought into 
being. Therefore, according to this view, no one expects 
to see the law of new creations the dominating principle 
to-day. On the other hand, that very theory itself teaches 
that to-day the outstanding law is the stability and repro- 
duction of the types originally created. This view takes 
its stand on the position that each species produces ‘‘after 
its kind,’’ just as the Bible, in its great first chapter, de- 
elared should be the case, and just as we see nature oper- 
ating to-day.* 

* Note Gen. 1:11, 12: ‘‘And God said, Let the earth put forth 
grass, herbs yielding seed, fruit-trees bearing fruit, after their kind, 
wherein is the seed thereof, upon the earth: and it was so. And the 
earth brought forth grass, herbs yielding seed after their kind, 
and trees bearing fruit, wherein is the seed thereof, after their kind: 
and God saw that it was good.’’ Verse 21: ‘‘And God created the 
great sea-monsters, and every living creature that moveth, wherewith 
the waters swarmed, after their kind, and every winged bird after 


its kind: and God saw that it was good.’’ Verse 25: ‘‘And God 
made the beasts of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after 


288 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


And for this view good scientific and ethical reasons can 
be given. Was it not a wise provision of the Creator first 
to bring into existence the various types of vegetable and 
animal life, then stabilize them, so that man, His highest 
creature, endued with rationality, might have a dependable 
and uniformly governed dwelling-place? Thus we can see 
that God had good reason for creating the world as it is, 
and then ‘‘resting from all His work which God had cre- 
ated and made’’ (Gen. 2:3). The Bible, therefore, gives 
the most rational explanation of the present status of the 
world. : 

Should the opponent reply that evolution, too, worked 
toward the stabilizing of type and ceased its operations 
when it had accomplished that purpose, we would rejoin 
that no evolutionist, so far as we know, has ever taken that 
position. Evolutionists constantly contend that progressive 
evolution is still in the saddle. If these theorists desire to 
be rational, let them admit that evolution was once oper- 
ative, but has now resigned its place in favor of persist- 
ency and reproduction of type. Then they can devote all 
their energies to an investigation of the geological ages to 
see whether there is any solid proof for their doctrine of 
the evolution of life by means of physical and chemical 
changes and of the evolution of higher types from lower 
forms. 

Well may we ask, too, if evolution was once the law of 
the world, why she aimed to bring about the stability of 
type in order to make the world a habitable residence for 
man. Was there teleology in evolution? Did it work 
with a distinct purpose? If so, evolution must have mind; 
and if it has mind, working with a distinct purpose, it must 
be a person. But all such reasoning is the height of ab- 
their kind, and everything that creepeth upon the ground after its 


kind: and God saw that it was good.’’ Permanence of type, just as 
we see in nature to-day! 


‘DOES NATURE MAKE PROGRESS? 289 


surdity. If there was purpose in the evolutionary process, 
there must have been a Mind back of that process, and that 
would lead us to the theistic view. Then evolution was only 
God’s modus operandi. The idea advanced by some mate- 
rialists (Haeckel) that mere naturalistic evolution works 
with a purpose, and therefore is endued with ‘‘mentiferous 
ether,’’ is too far-fetched and preposterous a theory to 
merit serious consideration. All ,empirical observations 
prove that wherever there is sufficient mentality to amount 
to purposive action there must be personality. A mind 
that can design anything, even the simplest piece of me- 
chanism, can also say ‘‘I,’’? and therefore must be a 
self-conscious person. If all evolutionists were theists, 
there might be some reason in their contention. In 
that case the only duty for them to perform would be 
to investigate God’s world to discover whether evolution 
was His method of operation in bringing the world 
to its present condition and whether He still operates 
according to that law. Later on in this chapter we 
shall have some pertinent remarks to make regarding 
the theory of theistic evolution. Our contention here is 
simply this, that it is more reasonable to believe that God 
first created the various types of life, making them stable 
for the sake of the rational beings whom He intended 
subsequently to bring into existence, than that pure evo- 
lution was and is the dominant law of the cosmos. We may 
add that the exponents of the view of special creations do 
not contend that God is now inoperative in the world of 
nature. No; He still holds sway; He still is in His world, 
ruling over it; but for wise and beneficent purposes, He 
has ceased creating ex nihilo,* at least for the present 
epoch, and now governs the world by preservation, provi- 


* We know of no book in which the doctrine of divine creation is 
more fully and cogently set forth than Dr. L. F. Gruber’s work, 
‘¢Creation ex Nihilo,’’? in which he proves that the universe is ‘‘a 
finite and temporal entity.’’ 


290 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


dence and redemptive grace. Should physical science re- 
spond that the above propositions cannot be proved by em- 
pirical tests, we reply that, even though that may be true, 
the view advocated is according to reason, and we certainly 
ought to be rational beings. Is it not reasonable that God 
should create a cosmos, make it stable and uniform for 
man’s benefit, and then exercise beneficent control over 
it, and finally bring His highest creature to the noblest 
and happiest destiny? If this is not true, then the uni- 
verse does not have a rational basis; in which case all the 
reasoning of even the evolutionist would be null and void— 
another story, and a tragical one, of ‘‘love’s labor lost.’’ 

Does some one ask how a man can be absolutely assured 
that God’s plan for the world and mankind is a kindly and 
beneficent one? We reply humbly, gratefully, and posi- 
tively, by a Christian experience of the redeeming grace 
of God in the soul. We aretaware of no other way by which 
certitude on the crucial problem can be reached. Let us 
now return to our argumentation on the uniformity and 
stability of nature. 

‘‘But there is progress in the world!’’ some one exclaims. 
Yes, my friend, there is progress in one realm; but in only 
one—the human realm, among the races,of men. Here in 
many instances the law of progress is written in bulking let- 
ters of gold. Progress, sometimes all too slow, yet clear as 
the noonday. Though we do not. breed anew species of men, 
we do produce a higher grade of men. Even here the prog- 
ress is not universal} and, sadly enough, there have been 
many cases of degeneration. There are heathen peoples 
that are the same now as they have been from time im- 
memorial, while others have slid backward in the scale of 
progress. But note, wherever Christian civilization truly 
touches man, there is advancement. Does not this agree 
with the Biblical conception of man? Made in the divine 
image, endowed with mind and soul and therefore with 


DOES NATURE MAKE PROGRESS? 391 


rational powers, he is capable of improvement, yea, of 
endless progress, by his own initiative and volition, aided by 
the power and grace of God. Nature is not rational; there- 
fore in and of herself she cannot advance; her own inertia 
keeps her what and where she is. There is only one thing 
in all the world that has the divine gift of initiation and 
self-movement; it is mind with a will. 

And mind you, too, that wherever in nature’s realm there 
has been improvement, since the dawn of history, since men 
have been able to investigate and test, it has come about 
only through the uplifting touch of human genius. All our 
blossoming gardens and orchards, all our fertile fields, all 
our highly developed breeds of fowls and animals, all our 
multitudinous inventions—which are simply pushing na- 
ture beyond herself—bear witness to the advancing faculty 
of man. Nature never could have made an eleciric trolley 
ear. She was never intended to do such things, but simply 
to furnish the materials for man’s genius to work upon and 
push to new conquests. 

How unmistakable is nature’s teaching here! She stands 
still, waiting for the transforming touch of her master, 
man. How beautifully this harmonizes with-Holy Writ, 
which tells us that man was created to till the ground and 
to have dominion over the animal creation! * Yes, there 
is progress in the world to-day; but it is found only where 
there is a rational mind, and even there it becomes really 
marked and extraordinary only where it is kindled and 
fostered by the Gospel of Christ and the arts of Christian 
civilization. 

Some time ago a correspondent took us to task for an 
article opposing the evolutionary doctrine by saying that 


* Gen. 1:26-31. Most significant is the language of verse 28 in 
this passage: ‘‘And God blessed them; and God said unto them, 
Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it.’’ 
The word ‘‘subdue’’ has a world of meaning in it; it connotes that 
man was to bring the natural cosmos to higher states and forms. 


292 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


we made the mistake of identifying evolution and progress. 
His contention was that evolution, as now held, does not 
always mean progress; it also includes retrogression. That 
is, sometimes a thing evolves the wrong way, or backward 
like the crawfish. This surely is a violent stretching of the 
word evolution. Spencer declared that evolution is a 
process of unfolding from the homogeneous to the hetero- 
geneous by means of resident forces. Joseph Le Conte 
defines evolution in this way: ‘‘A continuous progressive 
change, according to certain laws and by means of resi- 
dent forces.’’ We hold that men have no right, in the very 
midst of a discussion, to change the primary word in the 
dispute to a different sense. In that way you can make a 
word mean almost anything, and you get nowhere in your 
discussion. If the word evolution has as yet no stabilized 
meaning, that very fact proves that it stands for an un- 
proved theory. We dislike a term that flits to and fro like 
a will-o’-the-wisp. To our mind, evolution backward is a 
queer kind of evolution. Surely the etymology of the 
word itself would indicate something progressive (e, out, 
and volvere, to roll). For instance, when highly cultivated 
strawberries are neglected, and reversion takes place ac- 
cording to a dominant law of nature in the vegetable sphere, 
would you call such a backward movement by the term 
evolution? If you would, then the term is a ludicrously 
elastic one, and has too indeterminate a meaning for a 
scientific term. Are evolution and degeneration the same 
process? 

And right here is the difficulty with the evolutionists— 
they use their capital term in such a variety of senses that 
nothing is fixed, nothing is definite in their philosophy. 
If something progresses, that is evolution; if retrogression 
occurs, that is evolution, too; if nature goes by big salta- 
tions, or leaps, lo! that-also is evolution; if, as is the case 
in geology, a new species, fully formed, appears suddenly 


DOES NATURE MAKE PROGRESS? 293 


and without graduated antecedents, still it is all evolution! 
Some men speak even of the ‘‘evolution of a jack-knife,’’ 
in spite of Spencer and Le Conte, who said that evolution 
is a method of unfolding by means of resident forces. So, 
according the rubber-like use which some men make of the 
term, you might say that evolution is that power that 
makes everything that is made and does everything that is 
done! It is a blanket-sheet term; it covers everything. It 
is some men’s god, and should always be written with a 
capital ‘‘E.’’ But do not logical thinkers realize that a 
word that means anything and everything means nothing? 

At this point we wish to interject this thought. For our 
part, we can think of only one Power that was adequate to 
bring this universe into being and carry it to its present 
status of development; and that Power is an all-wise and 
all-powerful personal God. Put Him back of and in the 
universe, and you have assigned a sufficient cause for all 
that is and all that our aspirations lead us to hope may yet 
be. And when we come to study the universe largely, com- 
prehensively and adequately, not in a partial and ex-parte 
manner and spirit, we find that He works in various ways 
‘‘His wonders to perform’’—now by creation, bringing 
new things into being; now by miracle, putting some new 
force into operation for a high purpose, and now by grad- 
ual development through the laws He has established. 
Whatever else may be said about it, this is an adequate hy- 
pothesis, and takes all the facts into the account. It does not 
convert one set of facts into a hobbyhorse, and then ride 
them to death. The indictment we bring against the hy- 
pothesis of evolution is, it makes an elastic and indeter- 
minate use, and therefore a misuse, of the capital term it 
employs, making a talisman of it rather than a scientific 
factor. Our argument here for the theistic world-view is 
not the so-called argument Deus ex machina, but a legiti- 
mate induction from all the facts in the case. 


294 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


An illuminating article by Dr. L. T. Townsend appeared 
in the December (1918) number of The Bible Champion. 
Its title was ‘‘Prehistoric Peoples of the Western Conti- 
nent.’’ Dr. Townsend’s contention is that the high civiliza- 
tion indicated by the ancient cities exhumed in Mexico, 
Yucatan, and Central America, compared with the present 
inferior civilization of many of the people in the same re- 
gions, is absolute proof against the theory of evolution, 
whatever adjectives may be put before the term. Let us 
quote in proof of this position: 

‘‘Of the wonderful prehistoric cities of Mexico much has 
been written, but none too much. Where once were cities 
having a hundred thousand or more inhabitants, adorned 
with parks, palaces and temples, are now to be seen the 
outlines only of deserted streets and ruins of palaces that 
had been built and were in ruins long before the Aztecs and 
Toltecs had settled in the country. In Yucatan alone there 
are ruins that were once large and flourishing, where now 
silence reigns; and noblemen who lived in royal palaces 
have given way to half-clothed and half-fed peons living in 
adobe huts.’’ 

What shall we say of evolution in those countries? If 
there was evolution of any kind, it was obviously evolution 
downward. This is the question we should like to ask: If 
evolution is the outstanding and dominant principle in the 
world, why is its working not more strikingly displayed 
both in the past and in the present? There is not one scin- 
tilla of evidence that animistic and polytheistic people have 
ever risen into monotheism by means of purely ‘‘ resident 
forces.’ When such degenerate people have been lifted to 
a higher level morally and religiously, it has always been 
because they have been touched and uplifted by forces 
outside of themselves; and in every such case it has been 
the Bible and Christianity that have thus lifted them out 
of their pitiful condition. But that is not evolution; it is 


DOES NATURE MAKE PROGRESS? = 295 


the adding of a supernatural force. In the world of nature 
and of man there is the most tangible and striking evidence 
of the operation of two principles: one is a ceaseless round 
without progress; the other is degeneration. The proof 
of progressive evolution by means of merely resident forces 
is conspicuous for its absence. 

Dr. Townsend speaks by the book of the status of affairs 
in the countries named, for he has himself been on the 
ground, has personally examined the ruins, and has made 
extensive collections of relics from the marvelous ancient 
cities which furnish indubitable evidence of a high civiliza- 
tion in a remote antiquity. In view of these things, it 1s 
useless for certain classes of would-be scientists to continue 
to go along in smug assurance that their evolutionary 
theory has been proved and that no more is to be said. 
That is conservatism gone to seed; it is not science, which 
always has its mind open to truth and reality. 

In another number of the above-named magazine (July, 
1919) Dr. Townsend points out the impossibility of account- 
ing for the wings of a bird on the theory of evolution. We 
quote verbatum: 

“They (the bird’s wings) were not evolved from the 
lower orders of animal life by any recognized theory of 
evolution; for, if evolved, they must have come through 
variation from some non-winged animal. But, according to 
the theory of evolution, the first variation of that non- 
winged animal must have been an incipient wing, or the 
stump of a wing, on some of the reptile or other families. 
That, however, could not have been the ease, for such a 
stump would have been an awkward and burdensome ap- 
pendage, really a monstrosity on the reptile or other non- 
winged creature—a thing that nature does not like to 
tolerate, and will not tolerate. Indeed, it is one of the fun- 
damental teachings of evolutionists that nature’s purpose 
is to stamp out all disadvantageous characteristics; and 


296 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


clearly the stump of a wing would be such (an encum- 
brance), as it would afford no advantage over a companion 
that had no stump. And more than that, Mr. Darwin’s 
natural selection could not originate a wing; all it could do 
would be to cultivate a stump of a wing after it had been 
made, ”’ 

We may add a thought or two.to this argument. How 
could the stub of a wing ever get started on a non-winged 
animal like a reptile? What would have caused such a 
stub to start when, as yet, there was not the least use for 
it? After it had gotten started, how could it have devel- 
oped? For, as Dr. Townsend says, it would have been an 
encumbrance instead of an advantage. A mere stub could 
not have been used for flight. Surely, according to the 
theory of evolution itself, such a useless bulge on the side 
of a reptile, even had it arisen by some accident, would 
have soon disappeared by virtue of the very fact that it 
would have been of no use, but rather a handicap, More- 
over, why did nature want to convert a reptile into a bird? 
What was her motive or purpose? If there is an advan- 
tage in wings, nature must be gifted with the idea of tele- 
ology in conferring such an advantage on a non-winged 
creature. But if there is teleology in nature, there must be 
a Mind back of nature which pushes her forward along 
the line of progress. But that would give the theistic view 
of the world as opposed to the naturalistic. But we 20 
further: If nature saw that there was a decided advan- 
tage in wings, why did she select only one reptile, or pos- 
sibly a few reptiles, as her favorites and give them so great 
an advantage over their fellows? Or did wings evolve 
purely by accident? Considering their marvelous and 
complicated mechanism and their wonderful adaptation to 
the specific purpose which they serve, such a supposition 
is irrational. Thus the hypothesis of evolution falls to 
pieces on the lightsome wings of a bird. It seems to be 


2 


DOES NATURE MAKE PROGRESS? 297 


pretty easily shattered! On the other hand, creation by an 
all-wise God gives an adequate and rational cause for the 
marvelous effect. No other view does. 

Another citation from Dr. Townsend’s article is germain. 
He asserts that he is willing to stake his conception of 
divine creation as opposed to natural evolution on the struc- 
ture of a man’s eye or ear as well as on the feathers and 
wings of a bird. To quote: ‘‘There has been found occa- 
sionally an anatomist who has pointed out two or three 
imperfections (from his point of view) in the construction 
of the human eye. But for all that, the eye is an astonish- 
ing piece of mechanism. There are no fewer than 438,000 
optic nerve fibres, nor fewer than 3,360,000 retinal cones, 
all of which are nicely correlated. There are seven matched 
bones forming the eye socket, and six outer muscles attached 
to the ball of the eye, and one of them is geared through a 
pulley. There are oil and water supplies, with a tube for 
carrying off any over-supply. There is also an expanding 
and contracting pupil that adjusts itself automatically to 
the surrounding light. There is a marvelous network of 
nerves, three sets of which are quite different in the services 
rendered—those of vision, of sensation and of motion, and 
one of these nerves is unlike any other in the entire human 
body, without which sight would be impossible. There are 
also contrivances for adjusting the focus to different dis- 
tances, so that the eye is both a telescope and a microscope, 
the same eye being able ‘to sight a star or thread a needle.’ 
There are other contrivances for the correction of the 
spherical and chromatic aberration; also the mechanism of 
lids and lashes for the protection of the eye against what 
might otherwise be injurious to it. And all these differ- 
ent parts are perfectly co-adjusted for a specific purpose: 
that of reporting to the brain things from the outer world.”’ 

In view of these facts, we are constrained to say that the 
person who can believe that the human eye is the product 


298 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


of mere chance or fortuity is afflicted with blind credulity 
akin to superstition, and has surrendered the elements of 
reason. 

One of the outstanding arguments of the evolutionists is 
the fact that the human embryo and fetus in their develop- 
ment seem to recapitulate the natural history of the animal 
world from the lowest forms to the human form. At first 
blush, this reasoning seems to be quite plausible. How- 
ever, after more thought, it is, after all, far from convine- 
ing. The mode and circumstances of the development of the 
human fetus are very different from those surrounding the 
evolution of animals by means of both immanent forces and 
external influences. The fetus unfolds entirely within the 
womb, while plants and animals have evolved largely by 
means of external circumstances and forces. Moreover, 
the facts cited can easily be accounted for on the theory 
of creation according to the Holy Scriptures; for God ere- 
ated the vegetable and animal kingdoms, and then made 
man akin to them in many respects, so that he might be 
*‘at home’’ in the cosmos in which he was placed by his 
Maker. Hence it was perfectly natural and rational that 
the human babe’s development in the womb should be a 
recapitulation of all that God had previously done. How 
else, we would ask, in the name of common reason, could 
God have connected man organically and structurally with 
the natural cosmos which was to be his dwelling-place ? 
Thus the facts of biclogy as known to-day tally best with 
the view of divine creation. The ways of God are all 
“sweetly reasonable.’’? If man had not been created with 
organic kinship with the mineral, vegetable and animal 
kingdoms, he would have been an alien, not a citizen, in 
the world. He was the crowning work of God, but nature’s 
crown was vitally conjoined with the nature it glorified. 
What a beautiful unified scheme the Word of God depicts! 

We desire now to present another idea for the earnest 


DOES NATURE MAKE PROGRESS? = 299 


consideration of thoughtful people. If the universe was 
not created by a divine Person, but is eternal, then the 
universe as a@ whole is incapable of evolving; it is and must 
be a closed system ; for, being eternal, and there being noth- 
ing else besides itself in existence, no new material or force 
could be added to it. Therefore it follows logically that, 
as a totality, it must have always been what it is now, and 
must remain so forever. Of course, some parts within the 
universe are capable of development. But observe the con- 
ditions under which alone development is possible: there 
must always be an environment of available material that 
can be manipulated by the embryo, and added to the first 
plasmic substance. Take an acorn for an example; there 
lies the unfolded germ within its kernel. Now what is ab- 
solutely necessary in order that it may develop into an oak? 
A suitable environment. It must be planted in the soil, and 
must have moisture and warmth. The embryo can unfold 
only when it can add to its own substance the fitting ma- 
terial from the surrounding soil and water. Let the acorn 
lie out in a dry open space, and it will never evolve into 
a tree. The same is true in the whole realm of embryology, 
vegetable, animal and human; all germs unfold only when 
they can assimilate and add available substances from their 
environment. Therefore, while it is true that development 
is possible under proper conditions of some parts of and 
within the universe, the universe itself as an entirety, if it 
is eternal and uncreated, is a fixed system and incapable 
of progress. There is nothing from the outside to be added 
to it. 

However, if the universe is not eternal, but was created 
by a divine Being, a personal God, then it is evident that 
He could have so constituted it that it would be capable of 
further development by the injection of new forces through 
acts of His will. However, He Himself cannot undergo 
the process of development, because He is eternal, and 


300 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


therefore must be unto eternity what He has been from 
eternity. It is an absurdity to say that the eternal can be 
unfolded progressively. Only that which is temporal, only 
that which had a beginning in time and which is finite, 
can be developed. So we maintain that, if the universe is a 
developing universe, it must have been brought into being 
in time and must be finite. That there has been progress in 
the history of the cosmos there can be no doubt; both as- 
tronomy and geology afford empirical proof of that fact. 
Therefore reason itself drives us to the theistic world-view. 

It will be noticed that in the foregoing argument we have 
refrained from using the term ‘‘evolution,’’ but have used 
‘the words ‘‘development’’ and ‘‘unfolding.’’ This has been 
done advisedly. As has been previously said, the word 
‘‘evolution’’ is so elastic that at the present time it has 
come to have only an obscure meaning, and therefore 
stands for nothing in particular. For this reason we are 
bound to say that we think the term ‘‘theistic evolution’’ is 
a misnomer—in fact, a contradiction. If the term ‘‘evolu- 
tion’’ has any clear and definite meaning, it must be, as 
Spencer and Le Conte defined it, an unfolding “‘by means 
of resident forces;’’ then it would follow logically that there 
would be no room for God’s immanency in the world; that 
is to say, if God in the original creation put into the cosmos 
all the potencies (‘‘resident forces’’) necessary for its evo- 
lution, then, having created it, He must have retired from 
the cosmos in favor of secondary laws, and that would make 
Him the God of Deism, not of Theism. "We repeat, if the 
universe evolves by means of resident forces, there is no 
need of God’s immediate action in it. It is a self-per- 
petuating machine set going once for all. God is trans- 
eendent, not immanent. Therefore the term ‘‘theistic evo- 
lution’’ is a contradiction. & 

Let us look at the problem from still another vieatinte 
If God is immanent in the creation, if He is active therein, 


DOES NATURE MAKE PROGRESS? 301 


and if the creation is unfolding progressively, as the evolu- 
tionists maintain, then God must be continually adding new 
forces from His omnipotence in order to produce the for- 
ward movement; otherwise it is plain that there could be 
no progress. But if God is constantly injecting new ener- 
gies into the creation, that is not evolution; for evolution 
means unfolding by means of resident forces, and not by 
the introduction of new forces. Therefore, as we have 
said, development through resident forces makes God’s 
immediate action, or, in other words, His immanency, super- 
fluous. Thus the doctrine of theistic evolution leads logi- 
cally and inevitably to the deistie view of the world. 

The law of the conservation of energy, to which modern 
evolutionary science is committed soul and body, also makes 
theistic evolution impossible, because it crowds God out of 
the cosmos. This law is thus described by one of its advo- 
cates: ‘‘ All physical energy becomes kinetic energy, or the 
momentum of masses, and the law of the conservation of 
energy asserts that the kinetic energy of the universe is a 
constant quantity.’’ On this statement Canon McClure, in 
his ‘“‘Modern Substitutes for Traditional Christianity,’’ 
offers the following pertinent remarks: ‘‘This means that 
every form of physical activity is an instance of motion 
caused by other motion only, and the sum total of the 
energy causing all motion is constant; it cannot be added to 
or diminished. Every motion taking place in the universe 
comes under this law. There is seemingly no room for 
miracles here. For if any spiritual influence, it is con- 
tended, were supposed to change the rate of motion of the 
least particle of matter, it must increase or diminish the 
existing quantity of kinetic energy in the universe, and 
would thus be a contravention of this law.’’ 

Thus our point against the doctrine of theistic evolution 
is established. The law of the conservation of energy, which 
is constant, renders the divine immanency unnecessary and 


302 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


even impossible; for if God is active in the cosmos, and not 
merely a transcendent spectator, He must constantly be 
injecting new energy into the process. 

Since the word ‘‘evolution’’ has come to have an indeter- 
minate and over-elastic use, so that it 1s practically made to 
. do duty for everything that happens, we would frankly 
. propose a change of terminology. Instead of forcing a 
single term to account for every process in the cosmos, let 
us employ several terms; for true science and philosophy 
require that we hold a hypothesis and use a terminology 
that are adequate to the situation. The three terms that we 
propose are ‘‘creation,’’ ‘‘miracle’’ and ‘‘development.’’ 
Let the word ‘‘development’’ describe all the gradual proc- 
esses that the Divine Being employs in carrying forward 
the movement of the creation. The word ‘‘development’’ 
has not been used, like ‘‘evolution,’’ to describe a forward 
movement merely by means of resident forces, and there- 
fore can include unfolding by means of such forces, if God 
wills, and at the same time the injection of new forces when 
required. In this way God’s immanency and activity in the 
cosmos are preserved. But God does not always work in 
the way of gradual unfolding; He has other ways of earry- 
ing forward His plans; therefore the word ‘‘development”’ 
needs to be suppleniented by other terms. So the words, 
‘‘ereation’’ and ‘‘miracle,’’ should be employed to describe 
those works of God by which He brings something new into 
being, or makes some especial manifestation of His power, 
grace and righteousness. No; you cannot fathom the whole 
depth and measure the whole plenitude of the divine oper- 
ations by a single term. God moves in divers ways ‘‘ His 
wonders to perform,’’ and we must use divers terms to 
depict them. Of all the inadequate and inept terms that 
have been used to sum up the divine energies and processes, 
we look upon the word evolution as the most perverted and 
misemployed. Nor would we even venture to assert that 


DOES NATURE MAKE PROGRESS? 308 


the three words, ‘‘creation,’’ ‘‘miracle’’ and ‘‘develop- 
ment,’’ exhaust all the divine plans, purposes and oper- 
ations; but they certainly do account for more things, toto 
coelo, than does the narrow, limping, obscurantist term 
**evolution.’’ 

Before bringing this chapter to a close, we must add some 
reflections on a recent book which came into our hands after 
the foregoing was written. We refer to the Right Reverend 
J. E. Mercer’s work (1917), ‘‘The Problem of Creation.’’ 
It certainly is a work of much profundity of thought, and 
deals with all the scientific and philosophical problems in- 
volved. In many respects we would commend the book. 
Its theistic position is, to our mind, unassailable. The 
author’s restatement of the teleological argument is fine and 
convincing, and supplies what was lacking in Paley’s pres- 
entation to bring it up to date, to correlate it with modern 
science, and make it convincing to the modern mind. 

However, we are bound to say that the author has not 
convinced us on two points: eternal divine creation and 
the evolution doctrine, both of which he stoutly tries to up- 
hold. To answer him thoroughly would require a book, 
but we cannot avoid making a few suggestions in the way of 
reply. Regarding God’s being an eternal Creator, the 
author’s argument goes limping; for, after all, it is im- 
possible to grasp clearly the proposition that the universe 
has always been and yet has been created. It requires a 
winding dialectic to get even a vague idea of an eternal 
process that can be called creation. On the other hand, 
when you speak of creation ex nililo, you feel intuitively 
that such an act is a real creation—a bringing into being 
of something that had no previous existence. There may 
be insoluble mystery as to how God did and could create, 
but the idea that it was a real creation stands out before 
the mind like a clear-cut cameo. 

Again, if the material universe is eternal, it either must 


304 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


be a part of God’s being (which would be the old theory 
of emanation redivivus), or else you are plunged into the 
absurdity of believing in two Eternals lying, as it were, 
side by side. The former error surely was rejected by 
right philosophy long ago, while the latter leads to the 
error of Plato that matter is an eternal limitation and 
burden to God. Moreover, our author, while he refers a 
great deal to science, and is constantly quoting the scien- 
tists, makes very little reference to the teaching of the Holy 
Scriptures. We do not see how any one can read the first 
verse of the Bible reflectively, and still believe in an eternal 
process of creation. ‘‘In the beginning God created the 
heavens and the earth,’’ surely says expressly that there 
was a beginning; and if God Himself is eternal, as Dr. 
Mercer rightly maintains, then it must have been the 
heavens and the earth that had a beginning; otherwise that 
majestic first verse of the Bible would be devoid of sense. 
Still more, Dr. Mercer holds that the universe has always 
been an evolving universe. If that were so, and if it were 
eternal, it should have reached its present status long ago, 
because it has had eternity in which to unfold. However, 
if it was created in time, and so had a beginning, we can 
readily see why, in the wisdom of God, it has only now 
attained to a certain stage of development. That which 
had a beginning in time can be unfolded progressively ; 
that which has been from eternity must ever be what it 
ever has been. 

In many places in his book Dr. Mercer seems to reduce 
matter to force or energy, although we do not think he 
makes himself quite clear on that point.* If that is his 
view, it is untenable, because force is a quality of a sub- 
stance and not a substance itself. You must have an entity, 


*¢<T myself am prepared to see in matter the potentialities of 
mind. But that is because, as I have shown, I conceive matter to 
be mind from the very start. I hold matter to be Energy, and 
Energy to be Will.’? So says our author on p. 175 of his book. 


DOES NATURE MAKE PROGRESS? 305 


a thing in itself, in order to have a quality; you must have 
the nowmenon in order to have phenomenon. Something 
that does not exist cannot have quality. Nothing can mani- 
fest nothing. If Dr. Mercer’s talismanic energy in the 
material world is only the Divine Will in action, and if 
God impinges that energy upon the human consciousness 
as if it were real material substance, then it follows that 
God imposes a universal delusion upon the human family; 
for, with the exception of a few highly speculative ideal- 
istic philosophers, everybody believes in the reality of mat- 
ter. We cannot bring ourselves to believe that God has put 
His rational creatures in a phantasmagorical world like 
that. Again, this view comes very near being idealism 
(used here in the philosophical sense)—a system of philos- 
ophy that is discredited by the common-sense of mankind. 
We hold to the doctrine that there must be both quiddity 
and quality in order to have a real world such as the one 
which we inhabit. 

We must give attention to Dr. Mercer’s theory of evolu- 
tion. Beginning with the Ether of Space, he traces the 
evolutionary process without a break through the vortex 
whorls, ions, electrons, atoms, molecules, palpable material, 
life, sentiency, personality, consciousness, morality, and 
Spirituality, and it is all evolution without a single place 
of cleavage in the continuity; even the ‘‘mutations’’ or 
“‘saltations’’ of the scientists are included. In no place is 
there the injection of anything new either by creation or 
miracle. Let it be said, however, to the author’s credit, 
that the energy that carries out this marvelous process is 
the Divine Will; not the ‘‘Unconscious Will’’ of the Ger- 
man philosophers, but the Will of the Divine Being, who, 
because He has Will, must also have Intelligence and hence 
Personality. We must acknowledge that in this essay the 
proponent of evolution has ‘‘put his best foot forward.’ 
Our author demolishes the atheism of such crass material- 


306 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


ists as the Frenchman, Le Dantec. He also ‘indicates the 
inadequacy in Bergson’s ‘‘Creative Evolution,’’ by show- 
ing that such a process would be impossible without the 
directive purpose and will of a personal God. In many 
ways, therefore, our author has done excellent service to 
the cause of Theism. 

However, so far as regards the theory of evolution as 
here upheld, we feel that we must dissent. First, as we 
have already shown, if the universe is eternal, it is incapa- 
ble of being evolved. Second, the author’s theory does not 
correlate well with the Bible, which certainly includes both 
creation and miracle in its scheme of the world. The fact 
is, our author appeals very little to the Bible for his theory, 
but delves almost solely into the depths of speculative 
science and philosophy. Third, the progress of the world 
up to its present state of stability is, to our mind, most 
rationally accounted for by simply taking the Genetical 
narrative as it stands and according to its simplest prima 
facie construction. In the sublime cosmogony of the Bible 
all the facts are amply accounted for, and there is no dan- 
ger of idealism, on the one hand, or of pantheism, on the 
other. And, lastly, while no one will deny that. in pre- 
historic times there is evidence in both the Bible and science 
that the world was being prepared progressively, and 
brought to its present status, Dr. Mercer must admit that 
it is now stabilized, so as to make it a fit and reliable 
dwelling-place for man, and that to-day we do not find 
chemistry and physics running over into biology, nor one 
species of plants or animals merging into another, nor any 
of the plants and animals making improvement by inherent 
forces, nor any of the lower forms of animals evolving into 
men. Even if it were admitted that God has developed the 
world to its present status by a process of continuity, it is 
evident that the process has stopped now, in order to give 
man a habitation of stability and uniform law. But we 


DOES NATURE MAKE PROGRESS? 307 


think that the simple Bible way is the most rational—that 
in six days or periods God created and unfolded the uni- 
verse to its present condition, and then ‘‘rested from all 
His works which He created,’’ and now operates through 
the laws that He established. No; the cosmos is not in a 
state of flux; it is a régime of fixedness in the realm of 
nature, and whatever progress is made must be made by 
man, whom God created to be the head and crown of His 
handiwork and delegated him to ‘‘multiply and replenish 
the earth and to subdue it.’’ Slowly it yields to his efforts, 
and if he will continue to do God’s righteous will, by and 
by he will succeed in Edenizing the earth. Perhaps by and 
by God will introduce a new dispensation, and then we 
shall have the ‘‘new heavens and new earth wherein dwell- 
eth righteousness,’’ so comfortingly promised in Sacred 
Writ. 

Our duty would not be wholly done did we not point out 
the danger accruing to the evangelical faith from the theory 
of evolution. Just now we will not argue the question as 
to whether this hypothesis can be reconciled with the teach- 
ing of the Bible or not, but will simply point out its prac- 
tical effect on almost all classes of people, educated and 
uneducated alike. According to Dr. George Henslow 
(‘‘Present Day Rationalism Critically HExamined,’’ pp. 
17-27), the rationalism and materialistic monism of Great 
Britain are ‘‘professedly based on Darwinism.’’ Nearly all 
the various classes of secularists, freethinkers and latitudi- 
narians of England and America accept outright the evolu- 
tionary hypothesis. So to speak, they are ‘‘obsessed’’ by it. 
It is a well-known fact that the rationalism and materialism 
of Germany are founded on Darwinism, which was trans- 
ported to that country from England. Vogt, Buechner, 
Feuerbach, and Haeckel—all are materialists and all cham- 
pions of evolution. Graf, Wellhausen and Kuenen, de- 
structive Biblical critics of the most radical type, held to 


308 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


this theory, and made it the foundation stone of their dis- 
secting treatment of the Bible. The principle involved in 
the magic phrases, ‘‘the struggle for existence’’ and ‘‘the 
survival of the fittest,’’ lie at the basis of the ‘‘superman’”’ 
and ‘‘might-makes-right’’ philosophy of Nietzsche, who sim- 
ply changed the COE? of ‘‘the will to live’’ to that of 
‘‘the will to power.’ 

The author was once drawn into a debate with a secular- 
ist, who was violent in his denunciation of the Bible, and 
who also denied the existence of a Supreme Being. When 
we asked him how he would account for the world with all 
its evidences of design and beneficence, he declared that 
‘‘evolution will account for everything that is.’’ Only a 
few days ago one of our students reported to us that he had 
had a dispute with an unbeliever who declared that ‘‘every 
informed and up-to-date person to-day believes in evolu- 
tion.’? When he was asked how he would account for the 
evolutionary process itself, for the force that operates 
through the law and that pushes on to higher and better 
forms, his wise reply was: ‘‘ Well, I never thought of 
that!’’ How profound! The very thing that he ought to 
have considered first of all had no place in his superficial 
world-view. 

For the reasons given, and many others that might be 
adduced, we feel constrained to register our firm belief that 
the theory of evolution, by whatever adjectives qualified, 
is inimical to the evangelical faith, and lacks scientific 
verification. 


Se ee 


CHAPTER XV 
SCIENTIFIC THEORIES THAT CHALLENGE FAITH 


Tr is a mistake to think that the only subjects of thought 
that put a strain upon faith are religion and theology. 
Some persons aver that they cannot accept the doctrines of 
the Christian system because they are so mysterious. These 
people declare that they cannot understand God; that He 
is the inscrutable, unknowable Being, if He exists at all. 
Neither can they conceive how God can be a Trinity; how 
He could create the universe ex nihilo; how He could be- 
come incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ; how He 
could have been ‘‘conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the 
Virgin Mary’’; how He could personally take man’s sin 
and moral task upon Himself, and make expiation for 
iniquity; how the soul can perdure after the atoms and 
molecules of the brain have been dissolved. 

It shall be the purpose of this chapter to show that the 
scientists of the day also accept certain hypotheses that 
challenge and stagger faith, and even strain it to the break- 
ing point—to the point, indeed, where it becomes little less. 
than blind credulity. We have, in fact, often been both 
amused and amazed at men who have protested that they 
could not believe in the supernatural, and especially in 
miracles, and then in almost the next breath they would 
declare their faith in scientific theories that border on the 
grotesque, that are utterly beyond scientific verification, 
and that require the most childlike credulousness. 

Just for the sake of comparison, let us consider one of 

309 


310 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


the outstanding mysteries of Christian theology—namely, 
the doctrine of the Trinity, which some people reject be- 
cause they think it utterly inexplicable. We believe that 
just as rational a vindication of this doctrine can be made 
as of the theory of the atomic or corpuscular composition 
of matter. This is the process of reasoning. 

God is a Trinity—that is, He is both one and three. But 
remember He is not both one and three in the same respect. 
There are many things right around us that are one in one 
respect and three in another respect. So God is one as to 
His essence or being, but three as to hypostases, persons, 
and modes of life and functioning. 

Mr. Ingersoll used to make great sport of the theologians 
because, he said, they did not know as much about arith- 
metic as a small boy in the country school; for the school- 
boy would say, ‘‘One plus one plus one equals three’’; but 
the theologians declare that ‘‘one plus one plus one equals 
only one!’’ Then he would smile patronizingly, and his 
audiences would applaud. Well, suppose we look for a 
moment at this simple sum in mathematics. Put the for- 
mula on the black-board: ‘‘One plus one plus one equals 
three.’’ How many figures have you at the right end of 
the equation? Why, only one, the figure three. So, after 
all, in one respect, one plus one plus one equals only one, 
while of course in another respect it equals three. So with 
God. But some one says that is only a manipulation of 
figures. You cannot make good your claim when you take 
three actual objects and add them together. Let us see. 
Here are three apples lying on different parts of the table. 
I want to add them together. So I pick up one and set it 
down here; then the other and set it down right by the side 
of the first one; then the third by the side of the second. 
Now what have I? I have three apples, true enough ; but 
how many groups of apples have I? Only one. That col- 
lection of apples is one in one respect and three in another. 


——€  - - oe ee ee 


THEORIES THAT CHALLENGE FAITH 311 


So with the Triune God; one as to essence or being; three 
as to persons, or foci of self-consciousness. 

However, no trained theologian has ever contended that 
God is a mathematical material Trinity. No; God is a 
psychical or spiritual Trinity. The Bible itself says, “‘God 
is a Spirit.’’ Therefore our best illustrations of this doc- 
trine are to be found, not in the material realm, but in the 
mental or psychical. Have you ever thought about it that 
in a very inner sense the human mind has a triune con- 
stitution. It is made up of the Intellect, the Sensibility 
and the Will—that is, the cognitive, the emotional and the 
volitional functioning powers. Yet they do not constitute 
three minds, but only one mind. More than that, the mind 
is a unitary entity, and is not made up of parts as a lump 
of material substance is. Therefore the Intellect is the 
whole mind, the Sensibility is the whole mind, and the Will 
is the whole mind; each and all are identically the same 
substance or quiddity. Each in substance is equal to all, 
and yet all together are equal to each. Thus we see again 
that an entity can be, in a very mysterious and profound 
way, one in one respect and three in another. Remember, 
we do not hold that this is an analogy; it is only an illus- 
tration of the point I have stated, that the mind is one in 
one respect and three in another. So with the Triune God. 
Only God is personally triune, not only functionally. This 
distinction must be made to avoid the old heresy of Modal- 
ism, advocated by Sabellius and others in the early days of 
the Christian Church. 

A still profounder illustration of the Trinity may be 
found in the process of self-consciousness in the human 
mind. The self, the ego, the mind, can objectify itself— 
that is, the mind can think of itself, make itself its own 
object; it can, as it were, set itself out before itself. 
There, then, are two, the subject and the object, and both 
are the same ego and substance. But the circle of self- 


312 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


consciousness is not complete; another step must be taken: 
there must be another ego set off to one side, as it were, by 
which the subject cognizes the object as itself, and the 
object cognizes the subject itself. Now when you have 
these three acts of the soul, and only then, do you arrive 
at complete self-consciousness. So with the triune God, 
who is eternally and perfectly self-conscious, and therefore 
knows Himself in the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. 
This is the profoundest illustration of the Trinity that can 
be given, because it is an analysis of that deep and inner 
synthesis which we call self-consciousness; but let us re- 
member that, after all, it is still only an illustration, not 
an analogue; it designates three modes of life in God, but 
does not lead us to comprehend how there can be three foci 
of self-consciousness, or three persons, in the one Godhead. 

Yet I believe we can press thought still a little further 
into the wonder and depths of the eternal Trinity by this 
mode of speculating: If God is the perfect, infinite and 
absolute Being, we may conceive that, since He must be 
absolutely and perfectly self-conscious, He may exist as 
three egos, three foce of personality, in the same being or 
substance, each of which knows the others with absolute 
perspicacity ; so that Christ could say, ‘‘The Father know- 
eth the Son, and the Son the Father,’’ and Paul could write 
by inspiration, ‘‘Who knoweth the mind of God save the 
Spirit of God?’’ 

Thus we can, in a measure, at least, vindicate the pro- 
foundest doctrine of the Christian religion by a rational 
process; and we maintain that we can come as near doing 
this as we can prove many of the theories of physical 
science, aS we shall now proceed to show. There are in- 
scrutable mysteries and insuperable difficulties in the ma- 
terial world as well as in the spiritual sphere. Our Lord 
said to Nicodemus: ‘‘Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye 
must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, 


THEORIES THAT CHALLENGE FAITH 313 


and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell 
whence it cometh and whither it goeth. So is every one 
that is born of the Spirit.’’ As much as to say, ‘‘Do not 
stumble over the mystery of the new birth. Why, you 
cannot understand the mystery of the blowing wind. Why 
should you expect to fathom all the mysteries of the spirit- 
ual life? You need not comprehend them; all you have 
need to do is to experience them, just as you experience 
the action of the wind itself.’’ 

Our purpose now will be to consider some of the modern 
scientific hypotheses, some, too, that the writer himself 
accepts. We shall show that they carry in their very nature 
such absolute difficulties as to stretch both faith and reason 
almost to the breaking point. We shall begin with the 
Copernican theory of the universe, or at least of the solar 
system. Up to the time of this great Prussian investigator, 
the Ptolemaic view mostly prevailed—the view that all the 
old astronomers practically held. This view was that the 
earth is the central orb, and the most important, and that 
the sun, moon and stars revolve around it. It is called the 
geocentric view. The theory was wrought out in a wonder- 
ful way by means of cycles and epicycles; but of course it 
was encumbered with insurmountable difficulties. Then 
came Copernicus, who lived from 1473 to 1543, and who 
taught that the sun is the greater orb of our system, and 
that the earth and the other planets swing in vast orbits 
around it. This is called the heliocentric view, because 
helios means the sun. A century later—1564-1642—lived 
Galileo, who laid special emphasis on the theory that the 
earth is round and revolves once in twenty-four hours on 
its axis. For his advocacy of this view he was persecuted, 
by the Church and condemned and abused by his fellow- 
scientists ; all of which, of course, was very wicked. 

I suppose all of us accept Galileo’s hypothesis; the writer 
most certainly does; but think for a moment what a tre- 


314 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


mendous demand is made on our faith in holding this view. 
The earth completes a revolution on its axis in twenty-four 
hours. The earth’s circumference at the equator is 25,000 
miles. Therefore we who live in the temperate and torrid 
zones must be traveling at the astounding velocity of 700 
to 1,000 miles an hour. Have you ever been on an express 
train that was rushing along at 60 to 70 miles an hour? 
You well remember what your feelings were. But that is a 
mere trifle compared with the rate at which you and I are 
at this moment speeding along on the earth’s surface. Here 
we sit quietly and unconcerned, and to-night we shall go 
to sleep without a twitch of uneasiness; and yet we are 
swinging along at nearly a thousand miles an hour, almost 
17 miles a minute, almost one-fourth of a mile a second. 
Now we are here; presto! we are yonder, a mile away. 
Yet we are not conscious of any movement at all. We seem 
to be perfectly at rest. This is most astonishine—that we 
should be rushing along at such an inconceivable speed, and 
yet are not in the least aware of it. Does not such a theory 
tug mightily at the strings of faith? 

But I have not yet stated the greater part of the diffi- 
culty. The atmosphere, so light and volatile, goes with the 
earth in its impetuous onward rush; so do the clouds and 
vapors and all the gases of the earth, no matter how hght 
they may be. 

But a still more inconceivable thing is that the earth in 
its mad whirl never wobbles; never is deflected a hair’s 
breadth from its strictly spherical revolution on its axis. 
If so tremendous a sphere were to get out of plumb the 
diameter of a needle, it would surely fly into chaos, and we 
—well, deponent sayeth not where we would be. But how 
can the earth keep from wobbling in its swift rotation? 
How can it go without the slightest jar? It has no real 
axis, no spindles projecting out at the north and south 
poles and resting on something solid. No, it is simply out 


THEORIES THAT CHALLENGE FAITH 315 


here in space with apparently nothing but the subliminal 
ether around it to hold it in place. How does it keep its 
equilibrium? Why does it not wobble? 

When you consider the character of the earth’s surface, 
the difficulty is accentuated. The earth is far from being a 
perfect sphere. It is broken up into oceans and continents, 
hills, mountains, valleys, plains. The eastern continent is 
much larger than the western. In both the arctic and ant- 
arctic regions there are vast uneven mountains of snow and 
ice. Note the vast mountain ranges, the Rockies, the Andes, 
the Alps, the Himalayas, great excrescences on the earth, 
broken up here and there without any discernible order, 
with no apparent attempt to preserve the earth’s balance 
on its imaginary axis; and yet the earth goes on gyrating 
at the rate of a thousand miles an hour, and never veers a 
hair’s breadth from its appointed place. Well may we ex- 
claim with Nicodemus, ‘‘ How can these things be?’’ 

The writer confesses that sometimes, in thinking over 
this theory, he grows rebelliously skeptical, and declares, 
down in his inner consciousness, he does not believe it. The 
whole theory of Galileo and Copernicus may be a scientific 
blunder, a huge mistake, and we may be entirely on the 
wrong track. There must be some other way of explaining 
the phenomena of the solar system. But what other hy- 
pothesis is there to believe? The earth must be round, or 
people could not go around it by continuing in the same 
direction ; and if the earth is a globe, it must revolve on its 
imaginary axis, or there is no way of accounting for the 
diurnal: successions. So there you are—you must believe 
nolens volens. It is a case of Hobson’s choice. 

We have already indicated that we are very swift trav- 
elers with the earth in its daily revolution. But the half 
has not yet been told, if good old Copernicus was right. 
Would you believe it, we are also voyaging on our planet 
around the sun? We are being hurled at more than a 


316 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


breakneck speed in the earth’s annual journey in its orbit. 
And here is still a greater challenge to faith, coming again 
from the scientists, not from the theologians. We are 
traveling—remember, this is what the astronomers say— 
at the rate of 66,600 miles an hour with our planet around 
the sun, or 1,112 miles a minute, or 1814 miles a second. 
Let us note the demands that science makes on our faith 
while we are cultivating the fine art of traveling: we are 
moving this moment in one direction at the rate of nearly 
1,000 miles an hour, and in another direction at the rate 
of 66,600 miles an hour! If any one doubts my figures, 
and thinks I am jesting, I refer him to any modern astron- 
omy, like Todd’s manual, and he will find that the astron- 
omers are seriously teaching our boys and girls in the high 
school and the college these very theories as scientifically 
established facts. You can figure it for yourself. The 
earth’s elliptical orbit is 584,600,000 miles in circumference ; 
our mundane sphere has to travel all that distance, from 
perhelion to aphelion and back to perhelion again, in 365 
days, 6 hours, 9 minutes and 9 seconds, arriving at every 
station on schedule time. So you can make the division, and 
find out that you are going leisurely along at the rate of 
1814 miles per second without feeling dizzy or growing 
excited. Even though hurled at this rate, the earth never 
vacillates the diameter of a hair from its course; and it also 
carries its atmosphere with it without the loss of an atom, 
so far as we know. Does not all this seem incredible? Does 
it not stretch the faith even of a scientist to the breaking 
tension? I confess that sometimes in my weaker moments 
I whisper to myself: ‘‘There isn’t a word of it true. We 
are utterly on the wrong track.’’ At all events, the man 
who can bolt this hypothesis ought not to strain at the 
doctrine of the Trinity or the Incarnation, or balk at the 
story of the fish that swallowed Jonah. 

Perhaps you will think that all the difficulties have been 


THEORIES THAT CHALLENGE FAITH 317 


mentioned ; but the physicists join with the astronomers in 
imposing still another burden on our tottering faith. They 
tell us about the ‘‘ether of space’’—that is, a fine, ethereal 
substance, an almost thingless something, that fills all the 
interspaces among the planets, that bears the light and heat 
of the sun and other orbs on its lightsome wings, and holds 
all the planets in their orbits. They say it is thousands of 
times lighter than the air, is perfectly ductile, mobile and 
elastic, and yet it is the source of that tremendous power 
we call gravitation. Now note: the earth, speeding at the 
rate of 66,600 miles an hour, plunges through this ether; 
and yet, so light is it, that not enough resistance and fric- 
tion are met with to retard the globe one second in all the 
millenniums. What! and that frictionless ether is the force 
of gravitation that holds Neptune, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, 
Sirius and the Pleiades in their orbits! Does not your 
faith snap at such a proposition? If it does not, it must 
be made of elastic material. 

Next, we shall treat of some scientific hypotheses that do 
not deal with things on so colossal a scale, but that are no 
less mysterious. Let us look at matter itself. Some people 
cannot believe in mind as a distinct quiddity because, for- 
sooth, they cannot understand what mind is. We are dis- 
posed to inquire first what matter is. What is matter, any- 
way? Of what is its substance composed? Or is it really 
substance? Is it only force? No one has ever seen an ulti- 
mate particle of matter any more than he has seen an ulti- 
mate element of mind. At the ultima thule one is just as 
mysterious as the other. All we know anything about is 
the phenomena of both mind and matter; we do not know 
the nowmena—the things in themselves, just as the philoso- 
phers have said for centuries. Here is an old saw we used 
to hear in our boyhood days: Some one would ask you, 
‘“What is mind?’’ You would answer, ‘‘No matter.”’ 
Then he would ask, ‘‘What is matter?’’ and you would 


318 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


reply, ‘‘Never mind.’’ But that is no explanation; it is 
only a quip, an evasion. 

Some people are greatly puzzled about the infinite. They 
cannot understand at all what the infinite is. However, 
they never seem to reflect that the infinitesimal is just as 
mysterious. ‘Take matter, and say, as many scientists do, 
that it is composed of atoms. If you ask them, What is an 
atom? they reply, It is a particle of matter that is so small 
and so constituted that it cannot be made any smaller. But 
how can that be? Can you conceive of a particle of matter 
that could not be halved or quartered? Then why cannot 
these diminutive particles be subdivided, and so on and on, 
ad infinitum? You ean think, but you cannot think the 
problem through. At last you must simply give it up. 
Yes, the infinitely tiny is just as baffling to thought as is 
the infinitely immense. Yet the physicists and chemists 
insist that we must believe in atoms or atomies, or at least 
in something ultimate. 

Suppose, now, we take a still deeper look at the modern 
theory of matter. But to go back: Democritus, the Greek 
philosopher, is usually called the father of the atomic 
theory of matter. He made some advance in refinement 
over his predecessors, whom we cannot take time to men- 
tion. But when some one asked Democritus how the atoms 
held together, he said they had hooks. But that simply 
throws the mystery back a little further, for the next ques- 
tion would be, What are the hooks made of? Epicurus and 
Lucretius, the former in prose, the latter in verse, devel- 
oped the doctrines of Democritus, and the three together 
were the founders of the materialistic theories that have 
come down through the centuries and are in the world 
to-day. 

The modern theories, however, hark back a good deal 
further intoethe constitution of matter than did their pre- 
decessors of the olden times. Atoms no longer are satis- 


THEORIES THAT CHALLENGE FAITH 319 


factory. They are too big and ponderous, too coarse and 
lumbering, and in themselves explain little, while they 
themselves must be explained. Of course, the Greeks knew 
nothing scientifically of electricity and magnetism, nor of 
radium, helium, uranium, thorium, actinium, ete. So to- 
day the scientists must get back to something a great deal 
finer and more pliant than atoms. Therefore they pre- 
suppose the universal ether, the substance that fills all space 
not occupied by suns, stars, planets and comets, and that is 
the substratum and source of all the ponderable and pal- 
pable matter of the universe. This ether is the primordial 
material. Sometimes it is called ‘‘the eternal receiver and 
transmitter of force.’’ Note the attributes assigned by 
science to this marvelous substance. It is most highly re- 
fined and sublimated, perfectly ductile, mobile, continuous 
and elastic, not made up of atoms or particles of any kind. 

Here is a breaking test of faith again. How can a sub- 
stance exist without having parts and being composed of 
atoms. How can anything material have perfect conti- 
nuity? How can such attenuated substance be so elastic and 
strong that it can be indefinitely stretched by the flying 
stars and planets without breaking? These are hypotheses 
that seem to be utterly untenable. Nor is this all. The 
ether is, after all, slightly inert, say the physicists, because 
it offers enough resistance to the light waves to retard them 
eight minutes in traversing the distance from the sun to 
the earth, which is 93,000,000 miles. But if it has enough 
weight and inertia to retard the waves of light, how can the 
earth, with its vast bulk, slip through it at the rate of 1,100 
miles a minute without friction? This theory stretches 
one’s faith about as much as the racing planets stretch the 
ether! Surely if the ether has the least resistance and 
inertia, it would scale off our mundane atmosphere, and 
perhaps convert the earth itself into an incandescent ball 
by the friction caused by its velocity. 


320 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


The scientists assume the existence of the primordial 
ether. They do not presume to tell how it came into exist- 
ence. If it just happens to be, that is again a breaking 
pull on our faith. However, assuming the ether to be a 
real entity, its original condition was that of pure homo- 
geneity and quiescence. If that is so, how‘could it ever get 
into motion and convert itself into heterogeneity? Can you 
get diversity out of pure sameness without an outside force ? 
If so, how? Can absolute quiescence ever bring about mo- 
tion with no external help? How did motion ever begin? 
There can be no motion without force, but where did the 
force come from? Of course, it may have just happened 
to come along at the fortuitous moment, but some of us 
who are troubled with skepticism cannot help wondering 
how it could just happen to come along, and if it did just 
happen, how it could have produced such a wonderful 
cosmos of order and law and intelligence as the present 
universe is. 

Well, to continue the story: In some way, no one knows 
how, and at some place, no one knows where, the ether was 
thrown into vortices—that is, infinitely small whorls or 
whirlpools; these eddies formed ions, which were charged 
with electricity both negative and positive, thus making 
electrons; and these coming together in just the fortuitous 
way, formed atoms; the various atoms, being combined in 
divers ways, formed molecules, which in turn combined 
into all the various known palpable substances. There you 
have it in a nutshell—the program of the production of the 
material universe. 

However, here again a sore strain is imposed on our faith. 
Of course, we can see how God, if He created the pristine 
ether, could very easily have set it here and there into 
whorls, and thus given it motion; for mind, as we know, 
has the power of auto-action and auto-determination. But 
what we cannot understand is how these vortices in a con- 


— 


THEORIES THAT CHALLENGE FAITH 321 


tinuous and atomless ether could have formed the particles 
of matter called ions. We repeat, if there were absolutely 
no particles there in the original ether, we do not compre- 
hend how whirlpools could have produced particles. If you 
were to set a number of eddies to going in water, you would 
rather spread the water out further and further than cause 
it to come together into solid lumps. If the scientists will 
let God come into the process at all, we would think He 
would not have produced ponderable material from the 
ether by means of whorls, but would rather have pressed 
the ether here and there into solid particles, then made 
electricity and charged the ions with it, thus forming elec- 
trons, which He combined into atoms and molecules. But 
without supernatural power back of and in the process, we 
certainly cannot see that the assigned causes are adequate 
to produce the assigned effects. 

Physical science multiplies difficulties in its many as- 
sumptions and theories. It has pushed the mystery back 
from the atom to the ion, which it now hails as the smallest 
particle of matter, the nucleus of the atom. Some hold the 
atom to be a ‘‘closed’’ system with its electricized ions 
whirling about within it. There are both negative and 
positive ions. The negative ions are the more important, 
and are called corpuscles. We quote here from Dr. R. W. 
Micou, who has given special study to the new theory of 
matter. He says of the infinitesimal corpuscles: ‘‘They 
are all alike in nature and size, and constitute actual parts 
of the forms of matter from which they fly. Their velocity 
is between 10,000 and 90,000 miles a second, or about half 
the velocity of light. They are almost inconceivably small, 
being about one-thousandth part of a hydrogen atom, which 
has heretofore been considered the smallest particle of mat- 
ter.’’? At another place this author says that the beta cor- 
puscles produced by radio-activity ‘‘move with very nearly 
the velocity of light’’—that is, they fly off at the marvelous 


322 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


speed of almost 186,000 miles a second. Let us bear in 
mind that even an atom is a microscopic particle of matter. 
No one has ever seen an atom or a molecule, not even with 
the most powerful microscope. The scientist, Kauffman, a 
recognized authority, tells us that an electron is to a bacillus 
as a bacillus is to the earth. There are millions of atoms in 
a drop of water, and it takes a thousand ions to make the 
smallest atom known, that of hydrogen. Yet the ion is 
flying at the rate of 186,000 miles a second! There! in that 
second an ion has traveled 186,000—if there was nothing 
to obstruct its progress! This is one of the serious conten- 
tions of science. When we read of such speculations, we 
wonder whether the scientific guild are aware of the terrible 
burden they are imposing on a layman’s faith. We do not 
mean to say we reject the scientist’s guess, or that we have 
a better theory to propound, for we have not; but we con- 
fess that it is easier for us to believe that God caused the 
sun and moon to stand still over Ajalon in answer to 
Joshua’s prayer than it is to believe in the amazing exploits 
and athletic feats of those infinitesimal ions of the scien- 
tists. We are not making fun; we are very much in ear- 
nest; and therefore we must confess frankly that there is 
no doctrine of theology that so strains our faith as the gym- 
nastics of the ions and electrons. 

The scientists tell us that no particles of matter are at 
rest; all are dancing and whirling in even the solidest sub- 
stances. They tell us that heat is only a mode of motion; 
that the reason an object feels hot is not because there is 
any real heat there, but because the waves of ether have 
pushed the atoms farther apart, and given them a swifter 
motion and a wider orbit; and thus, when you touch a so- 
called heated substance, these tiny whirling dervishes strike 
your hand with enough force to raise a blister! Of course, 
in some mysterious way—not explained by science, as far 
as we know—the increased rapidity of the motion of the 


Rte: ot 


THEORIES THAT CHALLENGE FAITH 323 


atoms turns the heated iron red, so that we call it ‘‘red 
hot.’ We do not for a moment mean to say that we reject 
these theories; yet we confess that at the bar of reason they 
seem to be sadly inadequate, and really create more diff- 
culties than they explain. 

The science of the day appears to have accepted without 
demur the undulatory theory of light. Perhaps it is the 
true view. At all events, we have no better one to advance. 
However, we must say that sometimes we grow rebelliously 
agnostical. Let us examine the modern scientific theory of 
optics, and see how many difficulties it imposes on both our 
faith and our reason. First, according to this view, there 
is no luminous ether or substance, but light is simply and 
solely the result of the wave-like movements in the universal 
ether. Even the sun is not in itself luminous; but for some 
cause its atoms and molecules have been set into such vio- 
lent motion, and their orbits extended so greatly, that this 
very rapidity of motion, in some way, produces light; or in 
reality not light in the sun itself, which ig as dark as 
Erebus, but the accelerated motion of its atoms sets the 
ether into undulations, which spread out through space like 
waves of the sea, until finally some of them strike the eye 
of a human being or an animal, and then, in some mysteri- 
ous way not explained, they are converted into luminosity 
through the optic nerve in the brain and the consciousness. 

Now, anent this seemingly beautiful theory, we want to 
raise this fundamental question: If the ether is entirely 
dark, and if the human eye, with its iris, crystalline lens, 
aqueous and vitreous humors, its retina and optic nerve, is 
also dark, how can the black waves of the ether falling on 
the black organs of the eye be converted into the sensation 
of light merely by motion? Will anybody arise and explain 
how these things can be? How can nature get light out of 
darkness without a luminous ether? Sometimes, as we 
ponder these matters, we almost feel like declaring that the 


824 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


undulatory theory of light is all wrong, and that the old 
theory, that light is really a luminous ether, is the true one; 
so that, when it penetrates the eye, the sensation of lumi- 
nousness is easily produced. 

Nor is the mystery of light and color lessened when we 
are told that the different colors of the spectrum are due 
to the variation in the length of the ethereal waves; that 
ultra-red is produced by the longest waves, and ultra-violet 
by the shortest waves. What is there, we would humbly 
ask, about a long wave of a dark substance that it should 
produce a dark-red sensation, and about a short wave that 
it should produce extreme violet? If some one should ex- 
plain that the sensation of light is due to the action of 
electricity in the ether when its waves strike the visual 
organs, we would reply, ‘‘Then you have introduced an- 
other ether besides the universal ether to hetp you out of 
your difficulty, and that only increases the mystery as to 
how the earth in its revolution and its course about the sun 
can slip through two ethers without creating friction!’’ 
Besides, most scientists tell us that electricity is itself only 
a mode of motion, or at least the result of motion, and so 
we come back to our first inquiry, how the wavelets can 
convert a dark substance into light. The conversion of a 
sinner into a saint is no more mysterious than that. 

And now, in the language of Holy Writ, ‘‘Behold, I 
show you a mystery.’’ The various colors depend on the 
rapidity of the ether vibrations. And what, according to 
science, is that rapidity? I quote from a recent work of 
science, used in high schools and colleges, Hinman’s ‘‘ Eclee- 
tic Physical Geography’’: ‘‘ When the rate of vibration is 
392 trillions a second, the sensation of red is produced upon 
the eye. As the vibrations increase in rapidity, they give 
rise successively to each of the color sensations of the spec- 
trum. If the rapidity of vibration increases beyond that 
which produces the sensation of violet (757 trillions to the 


THEORIES THAT CHALLENGE FAITH 325 


second), the eye is not affected, and they cease to be lumi- 
nous. A ray of sunlight is composed of vibrations of all 
degrees of rapidity, which collectively produce a white or 
colorless sensation.’’ 

There you have the theory all as clear as midday! For 
convenience we will strike an average between 392 trillions, 
and 757 trillions, which is about 574 trillions. Now, in 
order to produce in the eye the sensation of white light, the 
ether pulsations must strike the retina and optic nerve at 
the rate of 574 trillions per second!! I have placed two 
exclamation-points after that statement. What becomes of 
the miracle of the fish swallowing the run-away prophet in 
comparison with this optical miracle propounded to us in 
all seriousness by modern science? Just ponder the su- 
preme miracle for a moment. The ether pounds on your 
eye 574 trillions of times a second in producing light, and 
yet you are not aware of any motion or impact whatever, 
but have, on the other hand, a sensation of perfect immo- 
bility. ‘‘How can these things be? How can a man be 
born when he is old?’’ Note the difficulty and the contra- 
diction of science. It holds that the ether is slightly inert— 
that is, has a slight degree of weight, else it would not 
require eight minutes for light to travel from the sun to 
the earth. We maintain that, if the ether has any degree 
of weight, even the slightest, 574 trillions of vibrations a 
second beating upon the eye would pound that delicate 
organ to pieces. But the scientists do not think so. They 
have a stalwart and boundless faith. Nothing staggers it— 
at least, no wonder in the physical realm. It is only when 
men like Haeckel, Tyndal, Huxley, Ward and Mains come 
to consider such Biblical mysteries as the miraculous con- 
ception of Christ that they balk, and their faith cannot or 
will not bear the strain! 

We propound still another enigma in the modern scien- 
- tific theory of optics. It relates to the very common func- 


326 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


tion of physical sight. How do we see? The present theory 
is that yonder tree, green and symmetrical, throws back 
the waves of the ether with inconceivable velocity upon my 
eyes. They penetrate the iris, dash through the lenses and 
humors, form an inverted image of the tree on the retina, 
and then, in some mysterious way, the optic nerve bears 
that image back into the proper brain center, where, in a 
still more mysterious way, it blossoms out into my conscious- 
ness, and, behold, I see a tree out there on the lawn. A 
beautiful hypothesis, in very truth, and I confess that I 
myself believe it. But how mysterious! how inexplicable! 
Observe the lacunae, the dark places, in the process. How 
and why does the tree set the ether in motion? How ean 
the transverse oscillations of the ether bear to the eye the 
image of the tree? What is the precise connection between 
the ethereal undulations and the color, shape and size of 
the object? If the mind, through the optic nerve, simply 
perceives the image of the tree on the retina of the eye, how 
comes it that I see the tree out yonder on the lawn and not 
within my eye at all? Centuries before modern science 
knew that the eye had a moving-picture curtain on its rear 
wall, men had been seeing objects just where they were out 
there in space, and had not the slightest suspicion that they 
were merely perceiving pictures on optical screens. Thus 
we see that our consciousness and our scientific theory do 
not agree; and that is another strange mystery. Why 
should we be so constructed that we think we see objects 
when we really see only images? 

In order to prove that my perception and awareness are 
correct, whether the scientific hypothesis is or not, I simply 
walk out to the spot where I think I see the tree, and, be- 
hold, I find it there, and not in my eye. How inscrutable! 
How past finding out! 

Thus we might continue to point out the many dark, 
inexplicable riddles in the theories of modern science. 


THEORIES THAT CHALLENGE FAITH 3827 


There is the hypothesis of gravitation—is it a push or a 
pull? Is it some kind of an attractive power that matter 
possesses toward its fellow-matter all through the universe ? 
If so, how can one body draw another through the space 
between the planets without any ropes with which to pull— 
without any strong and unbreakable substance that will 
endure the strain? Or is gravitation due to the universal 
ether, as the most recent pronouncements of science would 
have us believe? Then how ean that light, ductile, sub- 
liminal substance, which permits the earth to slip through 
it at the rate of 66,600 miles an hour without friction and 
retardation, be so strong as to hold the planets and suns in 
their orbits? It is all very, very mysterious. The doctrines 
of the Trinity and the Incarnation are not more so. 

Note a whole catalogue of scientific riddles of the uni- 
verse: the theory of evolution producing a cosmos without 
an Involver or Evolver; the theory of the fortuitous con- 
course of vortices and atoms producing an orderly world 
and ‘‘the reign of law’’; the theory of an unconscious in- 
telligence and will operating in all things; the conception 
of a ‘‘power that makes for righteousness,’’ and that still 
is impersonal; the view of design and adaptation without a 
conscious, designing intelligence; the proposition that the 
atoms are endowed with mentality, and when enough of 
these infinitesimal minds come together in a conference- 
meeting in the human brain, presto! they produce the 
human mind; the hypothesis that human sentiency, con- 
sciousness, morality and spirituality have evolved by purely 
resident forces from material substance, making the effect 
greater and nobler than its producing cause; the theory of 
parallelism in psychology; the theory of pluralism and 
pragmatism in philosophy, ethics and theology; and so on 
and so forth. But we must forbear. 

Our purpose in presenting this thesis has not been mere 
art for art’s sake. We frankly concede that our primary 


328 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


motive has been a moral one. Our aim has been to show 
that, in science as well as in religion, we must often walk 
by faith and not by sight; that we cannot always find our 
way by pure reason or purely logical processes; that the 
science of the day makes as strenuous a demand on our 
belief as do the doctrines of theology and religion; that 
theology and religion have no monopoly of the mysterious; 
that general skepticism never gets anywhere nor achieves 
any success, but that faith is necessary for constructive 
work and advancement in any realm of the worth while. 
How many things in this life we must take by faith! Yes, 
“‘faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of 
things not seen.’’ Call the roll of the heroes of faith; they 
have all been men who have achieved success and have 
pushed along the car of progress. The inspired writer 
looked into the very heart of things when he penned the 
line, ‘‘ Without faith it is impossible to please God.’’ 

Our theme teaches us another needed moral and spiritual 
lesson—that of humility. How little we know! How little 
we can know! The sum of human erudition sometimes 
seems to be large; yet the more we advance and discover, 
the more we realize the limits of human knowledge. There- 
fore we may well heed the admonition of Holy Writ, ‘‘Be 
not wise in your own conceits.’’ 

We think we may bring this chapter and our entire book 
to a close by apt quotations from two sourees—two from + 
Tennyson’s ‘‘In Memoriam’’ and two from Holy Writ: 

“Our little systems have their day; 
They have their day and cease to be: 
They are but broken lights of Thee, 

And Thou, O Lord, art more than they. 


“We have but faith: we cannot know; 
For knowledge is of things we see: 
And yet we trust it comes from Thee, 

A beam in darkness: let it grow. 


THEORIES THAT CHALLENGE FAITH 829 


’ “Let knowledge grow from more to more, 
But more of reverence in us dwell; 
That mind and soul, according well, 

May make one music as before. 


_ And again: 


“Oh, yet we trust that somehow good 
Will be the final goal of ill, 
To pangs of nature, sins of will, 
Defects of doubt and taints of blood; 


“That nothing walks with aimless feet; 
That not one life shall be destroyed, 
Or cast as rubbish to the void, 

When God hath made the pile complete; 


“That not a worm is cloven in vain; 
That not a moth with vain desire 
Is shriveled in a fruitless fire, 
Or but subserves another’s gain. 


“Behold, we know not anything: 
I can but trust that good shall fall 
At last—far off—at last, to all, 
Aud every winter change to spring.” 


1 John 5:4, 5: 


“Wor whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and 
this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. 
Who is he that overcometh the world but he that believeth that 
Jesus is the Son of God?” 


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eometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a re- 
warder of them that diligently seek Him.” 


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SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 


AuruouaH the following list of conservative works along 
apologetic lines has grown to a considerable length, the 
author has not attempted to make it exhaustive. The field 
is a wide one, and no one can hope to be omniscient even in 
his own specialty. Indeed, the writer is haunted by the 
fear that some excellent works may have been inadvertently 
overlooked, so that some reader will wonder why they were 
not included. As has been suggested, this is a list of 
conservative works. We do not know that so extensive a 
roster has ever been printed previously, and therefore we 
hope this one will be of real value to those who desire to 
pursue further investigations. 

We commend all the books here listed. Nearly all of 
them will be found to be of real value in eliminating doubt 
and fortifying faith. True, a few of them make, as we 
think, unnecessary and even dangerous concessions to the 
liberal side, but in the main they stand firmly for the 
fundamentals of ‘‘the faith once for all delivered unto the 
saints.’’? Some of these works deal a little too liberally in 
epithets, and do not always display as calm a temper as 
they might, but even these often contain sound and con- 
vincing arguments, and the drastic words are due rather 
to earnestness of conviction and concern for the truth than 
an unjudicial frame of mind. In these cases let the reader 
weigh the reasoning and overlook the slashing style. 

It may be asked why so formidable a bibliography has 
been presented. Frankly, we have had a motive. In the 
last two or three decades many people—some, too, who pre- 
tend to scholarship—have been reading only one side of 

331 


332 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


the religious controversy, especially in the case of Biblical 
criticism, and are not aware of the large and erudite body 
of literature that has been produced by competent scholars 
in favor of the evangelical view of the Holy Scriptures and 
the doctrines of our religion. To these persons this cita- 
tion will, we trust, be informing and helpful; and certainly 
to all persons the proportions of our list must be morally 
impressive, proving that the evangelical faith has not lacked 
capable championship. In the great contest the conserva- 
tive party has been able to meet argument with argument 
and to match scholarship with scholarship. 

Our purpose has been to cite only works bearing distine- 
tively on the science of Christian Apologetics. There are 
many other works, such as Biblical commentaries and books 
on Christian and natural theism and Christian and general 
ethics, that also carry a strong apologetic element, and may 
be read with much profit by all concerned. We could not 
add to our pages by citing such works. For selected bibli- 
ographies on the relevant subjects we would refer the 
reader to our two books, ‘‘A System of Natural Theism’’ 
(1917, pp. 12, 18) and ‘‘A system of General Ethics’’ 
(1918, pp. 276-278). 

Perhaps it will be said that, in order to be fair, we should 
have also presented a catalogue of liberal books. However, 
in the body of this volume many of these works are referred 
to again and again, and an attempt is made to refute their 
arguments; so that it does not seem to be necessary to bur- 
den our pages by citing titles. Yet, to be as ‘‘broad’’ as 
possible, we will frankly indicate where lists of liberal 
authors may be found. First, the following great conserva- 
tive works cite, along with evangelical books, also numerous 
works by liberal authors, thus showing themselves eminently 
fair: William Henry Green: ‘‘The Unity of the Book of 


Genesis,’’ pages 15-17; Edwin Cone Bissell: ‘‘The Penta- 


teuch: Its Origin and Structure,’’ pages 410-475: Samuel 


SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 333 


Colford Bartlett: ‘‘The Veracity of the Hexateuch,’’ pages 
393-398; James Orr: ‘‘The Problem of the Old Testament,’’ 
pages 543-547; Franklin Johnson: ‘‘The Quotations of the 
New Testament from the Old,’’ pages 396-405. Besides, 
many of the other works in our list (e. g., Ebrard, Fisher, 
Fairbairn, Sheldon, Robertson, Cave, McKim, Wilson, 
Wiener) constantly refer to liberal authors, citing titles 
and pages. The following books are liberal. They also 
give lists, but, with very few exceptions, they call the roll 
of authors that belong only to the liberalistic school: 
William Frederic Bade: ‘‘The Old Testament in the Light 
of To-day,’’ page 88, footnote, and numerous other foot- 
notes throughout the book; Ismar J. Peritz: ‘“Old Testa- 
ment History,’’ pages 334-336; Frank Knight Sanders: 
‘‘History of the Hebrews,’’ pages 337-353 ; Charles Foster 
Kent: ‘‘Heroes and Crises of Early Hebrew History,’’ 
pages 233-251. Dr. Kent’s other works also for the most 
part give only the titles of liberal authors. The ignoring 
of conservative books by the authors just named and others 
of their ilk seems to be studied. Why? 

As a foil and antidote to their ex-parte method we give a 
list of authors who uphold the evangelical and orthodox 
positions. Some of these works run back into the nineteenth 
century, while others are very recent. Both classes are 
valuable, for the student will desire to note how, all along 
the years, capable defenders of the faith have heeded God’s 
call to the great and vital conflict. These men, too, have 
been ‘‘heroes of the faith.’’ 

The author desires to add that he will welcome sugges- 
tions from any of his readers relative to effective conserva- 
tive works on Apologetics that may have been inadvertently 
omitted from the following list. The more stalwart de- 
fenders of the faith, the more will Christ’s kingdom be 
advanced. 


GENERAL APOLOGETICS 


AUBERLEN, C. A.: “The Divine Revelation: An Essay in De- 
fense of the Faith.” 

Beartiz, F. R.: “Fundamental Apologetics” (Vol. I). 

Curistiies, T.: “Modern Doubt and Christian Belief.” 

Eprarp, J. H. A.: “Christian Apologetics, or, The Scientific 
Vindication of Christianity,” 3 Vols. 

Farrpairn, A. M.: “The Philosophy of the Christian Religion.” 

FisHer, Geo. P.: “The Grounds of Theistic and Christian Be- 
lief.” 

Frank, F. H.: “A System of Christian Certainty.” 

Gisson, J. M.: “The Inspiration and Authority of Holy Serip- 
ture.” 

Iutinewortu, J. R.: “Reason and Revelation.” 

La Tovucur, E. D.: “Christian Certitude.” 

Linpperc, C. E.: “Apologetics: A System of Christian Evi- 
dence” (1917). 

Lormmrr, G. C.: “The Argument for Christianity.” 

Lutuarpt, C. E.: “Fundamental, Moral and Saving Truths of 
Christianity,” 3 Vols. 

Mar, G. E.: “Studies in Christian Evidence.” 

Mrap, C. M.: “Supernatural Revelation: An Essay Concern- 
ing the Basis of the Christian Faith.” 

McGarvey, J. W.: “Evidences of Christianity” (1912). 

Mu.tns, E. Y.: “Why Is Christianity True? Christian Evi- 
dences.” 

Orr, James: “The Christian View of God and the World.” 

Puiturps, L. T. M.: “Cumulative Evidences of Divine Revela~ 
tion.” 

Prerson, A. T.: “Many Infallible Proofs,” 

RisHett, C. W.: “The Foundations of the Christian Faith.” 

SHort, F.B.: “Christianity: Is It True” (1917). 


334 


SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 335 


Srmarns, L. F.: “The Evidence of Christian Experience.” 

Storrs, R. S.: “The Divine Origin of Christianity: Indicated 
by Its Historical Effects.” 

Swent, L. M.: “The Verification of Christianity” (1920). 

Wricut, Gro. F.: “Scientific Aspects of Christian Evidences.” 


MANUALS 


Fisuer, G. P.: “Manual of Christian Evidences,” 

Kennepy, J.: “Popular Handbook of Christian Evidences.” 

Knox, G. W.: “The Direct and Fundamental Proofs of the 
Christian Religion.” 

Rosinson, E. G.: “Christian Evidences.” 

Row, C. A.: “A Manual of Christian Evidences.” 

Stewart, A.: “Handbook of Christian Evidences.” 

We ts, Amos R.: “Why We Believe the Bible.” 


SPECIAL APOLOGIES 


Berrex, F.: “The Miracle” (revised edition, 1918) ; “The Word 
of Truth” (1914); “The Glory of the Triune God” (1911). 

Buack, 8. C.: “Plain Answers to Religious Questions” (1910). 

Buancuarp, C. A.: “Visions and Voices, or, Who Wrote the 
Bible?” (1917). . 

Brockxincuam, A. A.: “Old Testament Miracles in the Light of 
the Gospel” (1907). 

Brookes, J. G.: “God Spake All These Words.” 

Burrewu, D. J.: “Why I Believe the Bible” (1917). 

CuristraN Heratp: “555 Difficult Bible Questions Answered” 
(1920). 

D’Arcy, C. F.: “Christianity and the Supernatural.” 

Dorcusstrer, D.: “Christianity Vindicated by Its Enemies;” 
“Concessions of Liberalists to Orthodoxy.” 

Drawerince, C. L.: “Common Objections to Christianity ;” 
“Popular Attacks on Christianity” (Fifth Thousand, 1914). 

Faunce, D. W.: “A Young Man’s Difficulties with His Bible;” 
“The Mature Man’s Difficulties with His Bible;” “Hours 
with the Skeptic.” 


336 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


Fircurett, W. H.: “The Beliefs of Unbelief” (1907). 

FLEWELLING, R. T.: “Christ and the Dramas of Doubt” (1913). 

Gover, F.: “Studies on the Old Testament;” “Studies on the 
New Testament.” 

Greac, Davip: “Facts that Call for Faith.” 

Haury, J. W.: “Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible.” 

Haut, A. C. A.: “The Virgin Mother.” 

Hay, C. E.: “The Truth of the Apostles’ Creed” (by twelve 
German theologians, translated, 1916). 

Heacue, Davin: “The Bremen Lectures on Great Religious 
Questions of the Day” (translated from the German). 
HeEnstow, G.: “Present-Day Rationalism Critically Examined.” 
Hircuoock, F. R. M.: “The Present Controversy on the Gos- 

pel Miracles” (1915). 

Knowuine, R. J.: “The Testimony of St. Paul to Christ” 
(1905) ; “Our Lord’s Virgin Birth and the Criticism of To- 
day” (third issue, 1907). 

Lamp, F. J.: “Miracles and Science.” 

Lewis, Henry: “Modern Rationalism: As Seen at Work in 
Its Biographies.” 

Lintey, J. S.: “Was the Resurrection a Fact? And Other Es- 
says” (1916). 

MacArruor, R.S.: “The Old Book and the Old Faith.” 

-Macxenziz, K.: “An Angel of Light” (1917). 

Marcouiouta: “Lines of Defense of the Biblical Revelation.” 

McCuvrz, E.: “Modern Substitutes for Traditional Christian- 
ity” (1913). 

McPuerson, G. W.: “The Crisis in Church and College” 
(1919) ; “The Modern Conflict Over the Bible” (1919). 
Muir, P. M.: “Modern Substitutes for Christianity” (second 

edition, 1912). 

Muuuns, E. Y.: “Freedom and Authority in Religion” (1913). 

Orr, JAMES: “God’s Image in Man;” “The Virgin Birth of 
Christ ;” “The Bible Under Trial;” “The Resurrection of 
Jesus;” “Revelation and Inspiration.” 

Pierson, A. T. (editor): “The Inspired Word: Papers and 
Addresses.” 


SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 337 


Quackensos, J. D.: “Enemies and Evidences of Christianity: 
Thoughts on Questions of the Hour” (1899; second print- 
ing, 1909). 

ReMENSNyYDER, J. B.: “Reason, History and Religion” (1907); 
“The Post-Apostolie Age and Current Religious Problems” 
(1909). . 

Rimey, W. B.: “The Menace of Modernism” (1917). 

Sapuir, A.: “The Divine Unity of the Scriptures 3? “Christ 
and the Scriptures.” 

Scorr, E. F.: “The Apologetic Element in the New Testa- 
ment” (1907). 

Seepacu, J. F.: “The Book of Free Men: The Origin and 
History of the Scriptures and Their Relation to Modern 
Liberty” (1917). 

Sneppeare, C. J.: “Religion in an Age of Doubt.” 

Sunn, G. W.: “Some Modern Substitutes for Christianity.” 

Stuss, J. A. O.: “Verbal Inspiration” (1913). 

Srurce, M. C.: “Theosophy and Christianity” (1918). 

Sweet, L. M.: “The Birth and Infancy of Jesus Christ” 
(1907). 

TuorBuRN, T. J.: “The Virgin Birth: A Critical Examination.” 

TispatL, W. St. C.: “Christianity and Other Faiths.” 

Torrey, R. A.: “Difficulties in the Bible.” 

Torrey, R. A.: “The Fundamental Doctrines of the Christian 
Faith” (1918). 

Townsend, L. T.: Article on Jonah in The Bible Champion 
(September, 1913). 

Townsenp, L. T.: “Adam and Eve: History or Myth?” “The 
Deluge: History or Myth?” 

Tuck, Rosert: “A Handbook of Biblical Difficulties.” 

Vine, C. H. (editor): “The Old Faith and the New Theology” 
(1907). 

Wace, Henry: “Christianity and Agnosticism.” 

WENDLAND, J.: “Miracles and Christianity.” 


Winnincron-Incram, A. F.: “Old Testament Difficulties” 
(1909); “New Testament Difficulties” (two vols., 1910, 
1911); “Popular Objections to Christianity” (1912) ; “Rea- 
sons for Faith.” 


338 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


BIBLICAL CRITICISM 


Baxter, W. L.: “Sanctuary and Sacrifice” (1895). 

Bearriz, F. R.: “Radical Criticism: An Exposition and Exam- 
ination” (1894). 

Beurenps, A. J. F.: “The Old Testament Under Fire” (1897). 

Berrex, Fr.: “The Bible and Modern Criticism.” 

Bissett, E. C.: “The Pentateuch: Its Origin and Structure” 
(1885). 

Bopy, C. W. E.: “The Permanent Value of Genesis” (1894). 

Burns, W. H.: “The Higher Critic’s Bible or God’s Bible” 
(1904). 

Burrewu, D. J.: “The Teaching of Jesus Concerning the Scrip- 
tures” (1904). 

Cave, Aurrep: “The Inspiration of the Old Testament: In- 
ductively Considered” (1888). 

Cooks, R. J.: “The Incarnation and Recent Criticism” (1907). 

Datz, R. W.: “The Living Christ and the Four Gospels” 
(1905). 

Davis, J. D.: ‘A Dictionary of the Bible” (third edition, 1911, 
see isagogical articles). 

ErrpMANS: “Composition of Genesis.” 

Finn: “The Unity of the Pentateuch.” 

Fisuer, G. P.: “Supernatural Origin of Christianity” (new edi- 
tion). 

GIRDLESTONE, R. B.: “The Building Up of the Old Testament” 
(1912). 

GrarBLin, A. C.: “The Prophet Daniel.” 

Grecory, D. S.: “Why Four Gospels?” (1876). 

GREEN, W. H.: “Moses and the Prophets” (1883); “The 
Higher Criticism of the Pentateuch” (1895); “The Unity 
of the Book of Genesis” (1895); “General Introduction to 
the Old Testament” (1898). 

GrirriTus, J. 8.: “The Problem of Deuteronomy” (1911). 

HENSTENBERG, KE. W.: “Dissertations on the Genuineness of the 
xentateuch” (1847). 

Hircnoock, F. R. M.: “Christ and His Critics: Studies in the 
Person and Problems of Jesus” (1910). 


vee fa ae ee ee ee, eee 


SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 339 


JOHNSON, FRANKLIN: “The Quotations of the New Testament 
from the Old” (1895). 

JoHnston, H. A.: “Biblical Criticism and the Average Man” 
(1902). 

Kei, K. T.: “Historico-Critical Introduction to the Old Tes- 
tament.” 

Kennepy, J.: “Old Testament Criticism and the Rights of the 
Unlearned.” 

Keyser, L. §.: “Some Specimens of Liberal Biblical Criticism” 
(The Lutheran Church Review for April, 1915). 

Knowuine, R. J.: “Literary Criticism of the New Testament” 
(1907). 

Leatues, Stanutey: “The Law and the Prophets;” “Claims of 
the Old Testament.” 

Lias, J. J.: “Principles of Biblical Criticism” (1893). 

McGarvey, J. W.: “Jesus and Jonah” (1896); “The Author- 
ship of the Book of Deuteronomy” (1902); “Short Essays 
on Biblical Criticism” (1910). 

M’Intosu, H.: “Is Christ Infallible and the Bible True?” 

McKim, R. H.: “The Problem of the Pentateuch” (1906). 

Moeuuer, W.: “Are the Critics Right? Historical and Critical 
Considerations Against the Graf-Wellhausen Hypothesis” 
(1899). 

Munuatt, L. W.: “The Highest Crities Versus the Higher 
Critics” (1896). 

Munroe, J. I.: “The Samaritan Pentateuch and Modern Criti- 
cism” (1911). 

Nicoutnt, W. R.: “The Church’s One Foundation: Christ and 
Recent Criticism” (1905). 

Noxrscen, C. A.: “The New Testament and the Pentateuch.” 

Orr, JAMES: “The Problem of the Old Testament” (1905). 

Orr, JAMES (editor): “The International Standard Bible En- 
cyclopedia” (1915; the critical articles are of great value). 

ReppatH, H. A.: “Modern Criticism of the Book of Genesis” 
(second edition, 1906). 

Reco, Emit: “The Failure of the Higher Criticism of the 
Bible” (1905). 


340 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


Ritey, W. B.: “The Finality of the Higher Criticism” (1909). 
Ropertson, JAMES: “The Early Religion of Israel” (1892). 
Rosinson, G. L.: “The Book of Isaiah” (1911). 

Ropes, J. H.: “The Apostolic Age in the Light of Criticism” 
(1906). 

Rovussz, C. H.: “Old Testament Criticism in New Testament 
Light.” 

Scumauk, T. E.: “The Negative Criticism and the Old Testa- 
ment” (1894). 

Smiru, Joun: “The Integrity of Scripture: Plain Reasons for 
Rejecting the Critical Hypothesis” (1902). 

Stewart, T. McK.: “Divine Inspiration Versus the Documen- 
tary Theory of the Higher Criticism” (1904). 

Tuorsurn, T. J.: “The Mythical Interpretation of the Gos- 
pels” (1916). 

TuurRTLE, J. W.: “Old Testament Problems.” 

Torrey, R. A. (editor): “The Higher Criticism and the New 
Theology” (1911). 

TroeusTrRA, A.: “Organic Unity of the Old Testament;” “The 
Name of God in the Pentateuch” (1912). 

Urguuart, J.: “The Inspiration and Accuracy of the Holy 
Seriptures” (1895). 

Various AurHors: ‘Lex Mosaica.” 

Vepper, H. C.: “The Johannine Writings and the Johannine 
Problem” (1917). 

Von Oreutu, C.: “The Old Testament Prophecy of the Con- 
summation of God’s Kingdom” (1885); “The Twelve Minor 
Prophets” (1893), 

Wacr, Henry: “The Bible and Modern Investigation ;” 
“Prophecy, Jewish and Christian” (1911). 

Water: ‘Moses and the Prophets.” 
~ WarFietp, B. B.: “An Introduction to the Textual Criticism 
of the New Testament” (1886; old, but still valuable). 
Watson, F.: “The Book of Genesis: A True History” (1894). 

Wuirtetaw, T.: “The Old Testament Problem.” 

Wiener, H. M.: “Studies in Biblical Law;” “Essays in Penta- 
teuchal Criticism” (1909); “The Origin of the Pentateuch” 
(1910); ‘“Pentateuchal Studies” (1912); “Contributions to 


SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 341 


a New Theory of the Composition of the Pentateuch” (Bibli- 
otheca Sacra, 1918, 1919). 

WItkrnson, W.C.: “Paul and the Revolt Against Him” (1914). 

Witson, R. D.: “Studies in the Book of Daniel” (1917); “The 
Authenticity of Jonah” (Princeton Theological Review, 
April and July, 1918); “Scientific Biblical Criticism” 
(Ditto, April, 1919); “Present Status of the Daniel Con- 
troversy” (The Biblical Review, April, 1919). 

ZAHN, TuEoporp: “Introduction to the New Testament” (sec- 
ond revised edition, translated by Jacobus, 1917). 

ZerBz, A. S.: “The Antiquity of Hebrew Writing and Litera- 
ture” (1911). 


SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY 


'‘Azpitt, W. K.: “Science and Faith: The Spiritual Law in the 
Physical World” (1914). 

Berrex, F.: “Science and Christianity;” “The First Page of 
the Bible;” “The Six Days of Creation in the Light of Mod- 
ern Science.” 

Dawson, J. W.: “Eden Lost and Won;” “Modern Ideas of Evo- 
lution as Related to Revelation and Science” (sixth edi- 
tion); “The Historical Deluge;” “Modern Science in Bible 
Lands.” 

Dennert, E.: “At the Deathbed of Darwinism” (1904). 

De Pressense, E.: “A Study of Origins.” 

Drummonp, H.: “Natural Law in the Spiritual World.” 

Evererr, C. C.: “Theism and the Christian Faith” (1909). 

Farruurst, A.: “Organic Evolution Considered” (1897, new 
issue, 1911). 

Fisuer, G. P.: “The Nature and Method of Revelation” (1890). 

Gisson, J. M.: “The Ages Before Moses;” “The Mosaic Era.” 

Gripuey, A. L.: “The First Chapter of Genesis as the Founda- 
tion for Science and Religion.” 

Grouper, L. F.: “Creation Ex Nihilo: The Physicai Universe a 
Finite and Temporal Entity” (1918). 

Haas, J. A. W.: “Trends of Thought and Christian Truth” 
(1915). 


342 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


Hau, J. A.: “Glimpses of Great Fields;” “The Nature of 
God” (1910). 

Heacts, Davip: “The Lord God of Elijah” (criticism of evo- 
lution, 1916). 

Howproox, D. G.: “The Panorama of Creation” (1908). 

Hvuetster, A.: ‘Miracles in the Light of Science and History” 
(1915). 

JOHNSTON, H. A.: “Scientific Faith” (1904). 

JOHNSON, W. H.: “The Christian Faith Under Modern Search- 
lights” (1916). 

Ketiy, A. D.: “Rational Necessity of Theism” (1909). 

Lez, J. W.: “The Religion of Science” (1912). 

Mercer, J. E.: “Some Wonders of Matter” (1919). 

Micovu, R. W.: “Basic Ideas in Religion: Apologetic Theism” 
(1916). 

Patterson, A.: “The Other Side of Evolution” (1903). 

REMENSNYDER, J. B.: “Six Days of Creation.” 

» SHEBBEARE, C. J.: “The Challenge of the Universe” (1918). 

SHELDON, H. C.: “Unbelief in the Nineteenth Century” (1907) ; 
“Pantheistic Dilemmas and Other Essays in Philosophy and 
Religion” (1920). 

SurietDs, C. W.: “Scientific Evidences of Revealed Religion” 
(1900). 

Smiru, T. H.: “Christ and Science” (1906). 

Stiruine, J. H.: “Philosophy and Theology.” 

Townsenp, L. T.: “Evolution and Creation;” “The Collapse of 
Evolution;” also racy articles in recent numbers of The 
Bible Champion. 

WosserMin, G.: “Ciiristian Belief in God: A German Criti- 
eism of German Materialistic Philosophy” (translated by 
Robinson, 1918). 

Wricut, G. F.: “The Ice Age in North America, and Its Bear- 
ing on the Antiquity of Man” (fifth edition); “Scientific 
Confirmations of Old Testament History” (1906); “Origin 
and Antiquity of Man” (1912). 


SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 343 


DEFENSES OF SPECIAL BIBLICAL DOCTRINES 


Barry, G. D.: “The Inspiration and Authority of the Holy 
Scripture: A Study in the Literature of the First Five Cen- 
turies” (1919). 

Cooxr, R. J.: “Outlines of the Doctrine of the Resurrection: 
Biblical, Historical and Scientific.” 

Farrpairn, A. M.: “The Place of Christ in Modern Theology.” 

Forsytu, P. T.: “The Cruciality of the Cross” (1908); “The 
Person and Place of Jesus Christ” (1909); “The Justifica- 
tion of God” (1917). 

Gore, Canon: “The Incarnation of the Son of God.” 

Heactz, D.: “Do the Dead Still Live? The Testimony of 
Science Respecting the Future Life” (1920). 

Hircucoox, F. R. M.: “The Mystery of the Cross.” 

Hunt, J. B.: “Existence After Death Implied by Science” 
(1910). 

Keyser, L. 8.: “The Rational Test: Bible Doctrine in the 
Light of Reason” (1908). 

Lippon, Canon: “The Divinity of Our Lord.” 

Masiz, H. C.: “The Divine Reason of the Cross: A Study of 
the Atonement as the Rationale of the Universe” (1911). 

Moore, A. W.: “The Rational Basis of Orthodoxy” (1901). 

Moztey, J. K.: “The Doctrine of the Atonement” (1916). 

Myune, L. G.: “The Holy Trinity: A Study of the Self-Reve- 
lation of God” (1916). 

Orr, JAMES: “The Problem of Sin.” 

Pratt, S. W.: “The Deity of Jesus Christ: According to the 
Gospel of John” (1907). 

Quick, O. C.: “Essays in Orthodoxy” (1916) ; “Modern Philoso- 
phy and the Incarnation” (fifth edition, 1917). 

Revton, H. M.: “A Study in Christology: The Problem of the 
Two Natures in the Person of Christ?’ (1917). 

REMENSNYDER, J. B.: “The Atonement and Modern Thought” 
(1905). 

RosertTson, A. T.: “The Divinity of Christ in the Gospel of 
John” (1916). 

Scuarr, Pu.: “The Person of Christ.” 


344 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


SNOWDEN, J. H.: “Can We Believe in Immortality?” (1918). 

STALKER, JAMES: “Imago Christi” (1889); “The Christology 
of Jesus” (1899); “The Atonement” (1909). 

Stearns, L. F.: “Present Day Theology” (fourth edition, 
1898). 

STREATFIELD, G. S.: “The Incarnation” (1910). 

StreeTeR, B. H. (and Others): “Immortality: An Essay in 
Discovery” (1917). 

TownsenpD, L. T.: “Bible Inspiration: The Orthodox Point of 
View ;” “Discussions on the Trinity.” 

WarrlELtp, B. B.: “The Lord of Glory” (1907); “Counterfeit 
Miracles” (1918). 

Wuirtreker, J. E.: “The Separated Life: A Biblical Defense 
of the Divinity of Christ” (1909). 


THE BIBLE AND ARCHEOLOGY 


Banks, E. J.: “The Bible and the Spade” (1913). 

Barton, G. A.: “Archeology and the Bible” (1916). 

BIsseLL, E. C.: “Biblical Antiquities: A Handbook.” 

Bruescn, H. K.: “History of Egypt Under the Pharoahs.” 

Ciay, A. T.: “Light on the Old Testament from Babel” (1906) ; 
“Amurru” (1909). 

Coprern, C. M.: “The New Archeological Discoveries and Their 
Bearing upon the New Testament” (1917); also valuable ar- 
ticles in The Biblical Review for January, 1918, and Janu- 
ary, 1919. 

Conver, C. R.: “The Tell Amarna Tablets” (1893); “The 
Bible and the East” (1896); “The Hittites and Their Lan- 
guage” (1898); “The Hebrew Tragedy” (1900). 

Davies, W. W.: “The Codes of Hammurabi and Moses” (1905). 

Dawson, J. W.: “Egypt and Syria: Their Physical Features 
in Relation to Bible History.” 

Grimms, H.: “The Law of Hammurabi and Moses” (trans- 
lated by Pilter). 


Hivprecut, H. V.: “Explorations in Bible Lands During the 
Nineteenth Century” (1903). 


SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 345 


Homme., F.: “The Ancient Hebrew Tradition as Illustrated by 
the Monuments” (1897). 

Hoskins, F. E.: “From the Nile to Nebo: A Discussion of the 
Problem and Route of the Exodus” (1912). 

JereMias, A.: “The Old Testament in the Light of the An- 
cient East.” 

Koenic, E.: “The Bible and Babylon” (an analysis of De- 
litzsch’s “Babel und Bibel’). 

Kruz, M. G.: “The Deciding Voice of the Monuments in Bibli- 

eal Criticism” (1912); “Moses and the Monuments: Light 
from Archeology on Pentateuchal Times” (1920); also many 
articles of great value in recent numbers of Bibliotheca 
Sacra and The Sunday School Times; “The Problem of the 
Pentateuch: A New Solution by Archeological Methods” 
(to be issued soon). 

Macauister, R. A. S.: “Bible Sidelights from the Mound of 
Gezer.” 

Navititz, E.: “The Book of the Law Under King Josiah;” 
“Archeology of the Old Testament” (1913). 

Pereiz, F.: “Researches in Sinai;” “Ten Years’ Digging;” 
“Tanis;” “Hyksos and Israelite Cities;” “Egypt and Is- 
rael;” “Personal Religion in Egypt Before Christianity.” 

Pincuss, T. C.: “The Old Testament in the Light of Historical 
Records” (1902). 

Price, I. M.: “The Monuments and the Old Testament.” 

Ramsay, W.: “Was Christ Born at Bethlehem?” “Luke the 
Physician and Other Studies;” “Cities and Bishopricks of 
Phrygia;” “Historical Geography of Asia Minor;” “The 
Cities of St. Paul;” “St. Paul the Traveler;” “Pauline and 
Other Studies;” “The Teaching of Paul in the Terms of 
the Present Day;” “The Epistle to the Galatians;” “Let- 
ters to the Seven Churches of Asia;’” “The Church and the 
Roman Empire;” “The Bearing of Recent Discoveries on the 
Trustworthiness of the New Testament” (1915). 

Sayce, A. H.: “The Higher Criticism and the Monuments;” 
“Monument Facts and Higher Critical Theories;” ‘The 
Early History of Israel;” “The Hittites, or, The Story of 
a Forgotten Empire;” “The Times of Isaiah;” “Races of 


346 CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


the Old Testament;” “Patriarchal Palestine;” “Fresh Light 
from the Ancient Monuments.” 

Tom«ins, H. G.: “The Life and Times of Joseph in the Light 
of Egyptian Lore.” 

Urquyart, J.: “Archeology’s Solution of Old Testament Prob- 
lems” (1906). 

WIncKLER, H.; “The Tell el Amarna Letters.” 


- OLDER APOLOGIES 


The older Apologies, dealing with English Deism, French Athe- 
ism and General Infidelity, though out of date in some respects, 
may still be read with much profit. They prove how God raised 
up valiant defenders of the faith in those trying days. In order 
to economize space, we give the names of the writers only, with 
the titles only in special cases. 

Halyburton, Cudworth, Bentley, Samuel Clarke, Conebeare, 
Lardner, Bishop Horne (“Introduction to the Holy Scriptures”) ; 
Butler (“The Analogy”); Paley, Whateley, M’Ilvaine, Watson 
(“An Apology” in reply to Paine’s “The Age of Reason”); 
Nelson (“The Cause and Cure of Infidelity”); Gaussen 
(“Theopneustia: The Plenary Inspiration of the Holy Serip- 
tures,” recently reprinted); William Lee (“The Inspiration of 
Holy Scripture: Its Nature and Proof”); Rawlinson (“The. His- 
torical Evidences of the Truth of the Scripture Records”) ; 
Gleig (“The Most Wonderful Book in the World,” reprinted, 
1915); “Lectures on the Evidences of Christianity,” delivered 
at the University of Virginia by various eminent scholars (1850- 
51) ; Mark Hopkins (“Evidences of Christianity”). 


INDEX 


ACCOMMODATION THEORY, the, 176, 
u Lr genre Kt We igs Sr! 

Adam and Eve, 67-69 

Addis, W. BE., 21, 188 

Agnosticism, 263-280 


Allegory, 120, 148-169, 171, 181, 
183, 185 
Anhypostasia and Enhypostasia, 


240-242, 248, 257, 259 

Ainslie, John A., 168, 164 

Animism, 55, 83, 294 

Apologetics, and Biblical Criticism, 
27, 126; its nature and need, 13- 
28; positive, 18-25; proper tem- 
per, 26, 27, 331; thorough-going, 
23, 26 

Apologist, the Christian, his voca- 
tion, 15, 16, 333 

Apostles, the, as apologists, 13, 
14; as inspired, 180, 184, 204-218 

Archeology and the Bible, 54-56, 
108, 121, 344-346 

Ark of Covenant, the, 70-73 

Apriori and a posteriori methods, 
52, 86 

“Assured results,” 27, 109, 140, 181 

PETON OY, 131, 220-222, 300, 316, 

Astruc, 46, 128 

Atheism, 136, 262-280, 305 

Atoms, 305, 309, 310, 318-323, 327 

Atonement, the, 133, 1384, 215, 216, 
238, 309, 343, 344 

Azbill, 232, 341 


Back TO CuRIstT, 202, 203 

Bade, F. W., 30, 44-62, 100, 104- 
106, 118, 121, 170, 333 

Bartlett, S. C., 29, 43, 111, 332, 333 

Barton, Geo. A., 121, 344 

Baxter, W. L., 42, 338 

Beattie, F. R., 38, 334, 338 

Behrends, A. J. F., 176, 338 

Bible, the, a book of religion, 219- 
232: and science, 20, 118, 160, 
219-232, 306, 341, 342 

Bible Champion, The, 163, 294-297, 
337, 342 

Biblical Review, The, vii, 89. 341 

Bibliography, selected, 331-346 

Bibliotheca Sacra, 188, 341 

Bigotry, Jewish, 149-169 

Biology, 69, 222, 225, 306 

Bissel, Edwin C., 109, 332, 338, 344 

Blanchard, Chas. A., 38, 335 

Body, C. W. E., 19-28, 41, 338 


“Borrowing,” by the Israelites, 79 
Brookes, James G., 198-200, 335 
Buckham, John W., 134, 135 
Budde, Karl, 45, 64, 84, 108 
Buddhism, 136 

Burrell, David J., 38, 335, 338 


CAIN AND ABEL, 66 

Cave, Alfred, 41, 45, 48, 86-88, 110, 
111, 115, 117, 333, 338 

Cheyne, T. K., 19, 20, 238, 30, 108, 
eo 115, 117, 127, 128, 140, 170, 

Christ and the Old Testament, 38, 
89, 54, 59, 60, 81, 165-167, 170, 
201; as a defender of the truth, 
13, 14, 177; His authority and 
teaching, 38, 54, 60, 75, 202-218 

Christian unity, 268-270, 277 

Christology, 215, 248, 251, 348, 344 

Churehill, Winston, 45, 47, 63 

Civilization, early, 54, 55, 294, 295 

Communicato Idiomatum, 251, 254, 
255 

pars aay and universities, 128, 261- 


College students, their views, 271- 
277, 286 


Conception, the miraculous, a en yp 
138, 234-239, 325 

Consciousness of Christ, the, 236, 
241, 244-248, 256 

Conservative position, teaching, 
ete., 25-27, 31, 32, 35, 36, 40, 45- 


48, 84, 108-112, 127, 134, 137, 
145, 331, 333 

Copernicus, 76, 313, 315 

Cornill, C. H., 45, 84, 108, 141 

Cosmogony, 61, 85, 221, 222, 224, 
226, 306 

Cosmological argument, 278, 279 

Creation, doctrine of, 20, 61, 85, 
88-92, 96, 1138, 114, 118, 119, 
156, 222, 226, 239, 240, 252, 281, 
283, 286-290, 293, 297-299, 302, 
308, 307; ex nihilo, 289, 303, 309 

Creeds, 202, 203, 210, 216, 242, 
249-254, 257 

Criticism, Biblical and Higher, 27, 
126-129, 147, 148, 170-201, 221, 
338-341; meditating, 19, 23, 29- 
48, 105, 197; radical (negative, 
destructive), 16-18, 21-25, 44-46, 
61-66, 82-84, 98, 105, 109, 112, 
118, 122, 127, 129, 136, 145-149, 
170, 174, 175, 197, 201, 307 

Crudities, moral, 47, 48, 63 


347 


348 


DauHsn, JOHANNES, 112 

Daniel, 51, 111, 160, 172, 196 
Darwin and Darwinism, 296, 307 
Dates, according to Bade, 50, 51 
David, 194, 195 

Davidson, Samuel, AAR ae Oa SG 
Dawson, ‘Sir William, 239, O41 
Degeneration, 56-58, 290, 292, 294, 


Delitzsch, Franz, 45, 115 

Delk, Edwin H., 171, 240, 249, 250, 
254, 256, 257 

Development preferred to evolution, 
300-303 

Deus ex machina, 57, 293 

repens aime the problem of, 137- 


Difficulties, filet ie A 87, 63, 79, 
86-90, 220, 335- 

Dilimann, Avot g3 tog, 138 

Discrepancies, contradictions, er- 
Tors, etc., 19, 31, - 39-43, 79, 85, 
LOT NOD: 109, 123- 125, 137; 142’ 
143, 198 

Docetism, 237, 245, 249 

Documents, documentary theory, 
40, 41, BA, 52, 64, 85-88, 101, 
109, chi 123- 125, 170, 171, 190, 


197 
Driver, 8. R., 19-21, 23, 29-48, 108- 
SLT ISG; 117; 127- 129, 138, 140, 


147, 169, 170, 226 


Dualism, 248, 255, 256 
Ecorry (personality), THE, oF 
CHRIST, 236-255, 258, 259; in 


general, 311, 312 

Electrons, ions, vortices, 805, 320- 
323, 327 

El, El lyon, El Olam, El Roi, El 
Shaddai, 85, 86, 92, 93 

Elohe, Elohim, 84, 86- 89, 98-97, 
103, 117 

Hlohist, 83, 86, 170 

Embryology, 298, 299 

Encyclopedia, The International 
Standard Bible, 46, 128, 169, 339 

Energy, conservation of, 301, 302 

Eschatology, 196, 250 

ies the universal, 305, 307, 319- 

Ethics of the gosnels, 216-218 

Evangelical faith, Sa ae: ete., 15, 
193232125). 26 43, 48, 53, 59, 
75, 104, 106, iis. 114, 127, 135, 
143, 180, 181, 244, 249, 268, 307, 
308, 332, 333 

Evolution, 97, 44-63, 83, 101, 108, 
120, 128, 136, 250; criticism on, 
281-308 

Hxilic and post-exilic, 165, 197 

Experience, Cnristian, 129- 134, 261, 
262, 270, 271, 290, 313 

Bye, the, 297, 325, 326 

Ezra, 174, 175, 181, 183, 190, 197 


FAcT OR FICTION? 147-169 
Fairbairn, A. M., 55, 334 


INDEX 


Fall, man’s, 21, 62, 67 

Fetichism, 55, 56, 83 

Fiction, its pedagogical value, 115, 
122, 123, 142, 1438, 147 -169, 228, 
229 

Forms of Revelation, 31-33 

Fraud, ‘‘a pious,’’ 174, 190, 197 


GALILEO, 318, 315 

Geike, Cunningham, 158, 159 

Genesis, 19-238, 33, 41, 45, 46, 50, 
51, 58, 61, 68, 85- 89, 94, "102; 
L141, 115, 118, 172, 182, 184, 185, 
189, 225-229, 287 

Geology, 231, 281, 282, 292, 300 

Germany, 263, 264, 305, 307 

Girdlestone, R. B., 45, 110, 338 

God and Immortality, 261-280 

Golden calf, O58, 14 Je 

Gore, Canon, 

Graf, Ko ae 50, 39, 110, 127, 138, 
140, 307 

Graf-Wellhausen school, 30, 89, 127 

Gravitation, theory of, 317, 327 

Greek poets, philosophers, ’ete., 60, 
61, 76, 86, 114, 1386, 303, 318 

Green, William H., 15, 40-45, 48, 
Tip LO LeOe EL LOs 117, 332, 338 

Griffiths, J. S., 137- 146, 338 

Gruber, Ts Franklin, 289, 341 


HAECKEL, ERNEST, 186, 289, 307, 
325 

Haley, J. W., 42, 79, 336 

Harper, W. R., 21-23 

Heat, theory of, 322, 323 

Hebrews, a History of, 104-126 


Hengstenberg, H. W., 45, 48, 79, 
109, 3838 
Henotheism, 77, 83, 92, 99 


Henslow, George, 287, 807, 3386 

Hexateuch, Tift: 170, 171, 181, 197, 
333 

Hilkiah, 141, 144, 173-175, 181, 
183, 197 

Hinduism, 136, 237), 238 

Historicity of the Bible, 60, 61, 99, 
114-116, 118, 120- 123, 126, 127; 
144, 176, 184- 186, 220-232 

History or Parable, 147- 169 

Hitchcock, F. R. M., 135, 336, 339 

Hommel, Fritz, 109, "34 5 

Homoiusios, 243 

Hopkins, W. By 127, 128 187 

Human embryo, the, 298 

Huxley, Thomas, 114, 282, 825 


Hypostatie union, the, 237, 239, 
241, 249-260 


IpoLs, 100-102 

Ignatius, 135 

Mustrations, use of, 229-231, 247, 

Immanence, the divine, 134, 135 

Immortality, 261-280, 348, 344 

Incarnation, divine, 233-260, 316, 
327, 348, 344 


INDEX 349 


ee Robert G., 48, 68, 70, 78, 

31 

Inspiration, Biblical, 14, 18, 19, 23, 
24, 27, 29-43, 49, 59, 102, 106- 
111, 114, 120-129, 135-145, 148, 
152, 171, 174, 182, 184, 190, 198, 
202-218, 3438, 344, 346 

Irenaeus, 15, 135 

Israel’s call and election, 76, 77 
90, 95, 99, 115, 121 


Jacos DEFENDED, 38 


Jahvism, 58, 


deity,” 64, 76, 91, 96, 97; not a 
“tribal god,” 64, 9 
universal God, 83-103 
Jehovist, the, 85, 170 riesoas 
Jericho and its walls, 125, 156 
Johnson, Franklin, 200, 201, 333, 


339 
Jonah, 147-169, 195, 196, 316 
Jordan, crossing the, 124, 125 
Josephus, 49, 79 
eoarah: 140-145, 173, 174, 190, 197 


_¢. B., 42, 45, 48, 77-79, 115, 
Karts Ot 163, 164, 165, 169, 339 
Kelley, Alfred D., 282, 342 
Kennedy, John, 169, 335, 339 
Kenosis, of Christ, 178, 179, 243- 

248 
Kent, Charles F., 23-25, 30, 111, 
ph Tipe oY eae 333 
Klostermann, A., 45, 109, 115 
Knowling, R. J., 182, 234, 336, 339 
Knudson, Albert C., LES IST 
Kuenen, A., 45, 46, 64, 84, 110, 
128, 140, 142, 143, 172, 307 


Lanon, J. P., 78, 125, 156 

Le Conte, Joseph, 292, 293, 300 

Leuba, James H., 136, 262-280 

Lewis, Frank Grant, 128, 129, 137 

Lias, J. J., 38, 40, 110, 111, 115, 
339 

Liberals and conservatives, a con- 
trast, 127-146 3 

Light, the undulatory theory of, 
823-326 

Livingstone, David, 247 

Logos, the, 215, 233, 236, 237, 240- 
244, 248, 251, 252, 256, 259 

Lombard, Peter, 240 

Luthardt, C. E., 15, 334 1D 

Lutheran Church Review, The, Vil, 
248, 268, 339 

Lutheran Quarterly, The, vii, 44, 
127, 129 

Lutheran theology and theologians, 
71, 135, 240, 243, 254 


MacInrosH, Doveras C., 129-134, 
137 


Man, created, 62, 67-70, 88, 89, 97, 
117-121, 185, 222, 226, 227, 239, 
240, 242, 298 

Martensen, H., 277 

Marti, Karl, 45, 63, 64, 84 

Martineau, James, 238, 271 

Matter, mysteries of, 317-326 

ee Edmund, 89, 112, 301, 
33 

McFadyen, John B., 108, 111, 115 

MeGarvey, John W., 88, 45, 110, 
111, 169, 334, 339 

McKim, Randolph H., 110, 339 

McPherson, G. W., 2638, 336 

pester itp women and religion, 274, 

Mentiferous ether, 289 

Mercer, J. E., 803-306, 336 

Micou, Richard W., 321, 342 

Miracles, 124, 131-134, 151, 154- 
162, 174, 189, 235, 236, 243, 302, 
303, 309, 344 

Moeller, Wilhelm, 45, 109, 111, 
115, 339 

Mohammedanism, 56, 107 

Monism, 136, 255, 307 

Monojahvism, 65, 84 

Monolatry, 57-59, 84, 97, 100 

Monotheism, 55-58, 83, 84, 91, 94, 
97, 98, 100, 102, 294 

Moses, 33, 34, 50, 51, 74-76, 86-89, 
Ob-OSH LOZ LOT Lag keoun aos 
Font 172-176, 178, 181, 183, 188- 

Muir, Sir William, 139 

Miiller, Max 55 

Sys AOL eS rei 
utations and = saltati 
vS3. o98 altations, 282, 

Mylne, Louis G., 208, 343 

Mysteries, scientific and theological, 
27, 309-320 


Naive Fairu, 19, 22 
eee. and supernatural, the, 131, 


Nehemiah, 174, 175, 197 

New ‘Testament, the Christ’s au- 
thority throughout, 202-218; its 
apologetic element, 18, 14 

Nietzsche, 307 

Nineveh’s repentance, 151, 152, 
161-164 

Noachian deluge, 68, 69, 80, 81, 
121.1867) 227 

Noesgen, C. F., 170, 339 

Noumena, 258, 305, 317 


OBSCURANTISM, 219, 225, 303 

Old Testament religion, 44-62 

Oettli, 109 

Ontology, 257-259 

Orelli, Von, 45, 109, 115, 169, 340 

Origen, 120 

Orr, James, 15, 38, 40-43, 45, 46, 
55, 56, 77, 78, 102, 108, 110, 111, 
115, 132, 234, 288, 240, 243, 249, 
278, 3338, 334, 336, 339, 343 


350 


Orthodoxy, 17, 35, 47, 48, 64, 134, 
135, 159, 201, 211, 216, 231, 244) 
249, 257, 258, 333, 343, 344 


Painn, THomas, 48, 70, 80, 346 

Pantheism, 135, 136, 237, 238, 255, 
256, 306 

Pastors and Biblical criticism, 147, 

ig 


the, 
186-188 
Paul, his inspiration and theology, 
183, 184, 210-218 
Pentateuch, the, 20, 33, 51, 53, 54, 
58, 64, 85-89, 94, 111; 115, 129; 
138, 170, 172, 176- 181, 184) 188- 
192, 332 
Peritz, Ismar J., 30, 170, 333 
Personality, its nature, 271, 272; 
278, 279 
Peter on inspiration, 182, 188, 209, 
210, 215, 216, 218 
Phenomena, 258, 305, 317 
Phillips, Wendell, 55. 
Philosophy of religion, 55, 334, 341, 
Pneumatology, 215 
Polytheism, 55, 56, 88, 294 
Preaching and Apologetics, 16 
Presuppositions, Driver’s, 39, 40 
Priests’ code, 48, 51, 58, 59, 170 
Princeton Theological Review, The, 
HET 169, 2203341 
Progress, man’s, 290, 291; in na- 
ture, 281- 308: in revelation, 47, 
101; in theology, 184, 185 
Pusey, E. B., 156 


real Characters, 


QUESTIONNAIRES, LEUBA’S, 261-280 
Quick, Oliver Chase, 203, '343 


RAMSAY, Sir WILLIAM, 108, 345 

Rationalism and rationalists, 15, 
16, 18, 36, 38, 40, 48, 64, 106, 
114, 116, 117, 123, "130, 131, 133, 
136, 140, 145, 156, 159, 221) 229, 
268, 307 

“Rational Test, The,’ 132, 283, 
239, 343 

Redactors, 39-41, 54, 58, 85, 101, 
170, 171, 181 

Redemption, 20; 62, 76, 90, 116, 
LIS HIRT ee. 134; 149, 192, 224° 
235, 237-241, 252, 290° 

Redpath, Henry Aue CC VA Bo os BP Be ly 
228, 339 

pe the Old Testament, 44- 


62, 


deg e Herbert M., 208, 234, 248, 


Revelation, divine, 44-62, 76, 83, 
102, 103, 108, 109, TIS yaa 116, 
119, 122° 123. 291, 222) 225, 227 

Riley, William B., 263, 337, 340 

Ritschlianism, 231, 237 

Robertson, James, 39, 40, 45, 109, 

SPREE CLANS BBS. R40 

* Roman philosophers, 60, 61, 76 


INDEX 


Roosevelt, T. R., 282 
Rothe, Richard, "237, 238 


SAMPhy, JOHN R., 169 
Sanctuary, central, 42 
Step es William, 34, 172, 173, 190, 


Sanders, Frank K., 380, 104-126, 
170, 333 

Saphir, Adolph, 197, 337 

Sayce, A. H., 110, 112, B45 

Schleiermacher, 238 

Schmauk, Theodore E., sk 184, 340 


Schmid, Heinrich, 134. 

Scholarship, 26, 27, 109, “42 126, 
128, 140, 197, 201, 235, 264, 267, 
269, 328° 332 

Schweitzer, Albert, 249-251 

Science and the Bible, 20, 52-57, 
91, 110, 118, 160, 219-232, 306 


Scientists (physicists, biologists, 
psychologists, etc.), how they 
reason and differ, 261-280 ; 


their marvelous faith, 809-329 

Scott, H. F., 18; 337 

Scott, Walter, 228 

Self-consciousness, 
man, 311, 

“Shorter Bible, The 123024. 

Smith, George Adam, 108, 150, 
151, 155, 172 

Smith, Henry Preserved, 45, 84 

Smith, John, 38, 199, 340 

Smith, W. Robertson, 30, 45, 84, 
4 

Smyth, J. Paterson, 129, 137 

Society for Promoting Christian 
Knowledge, The, 234 

Sources, 64, ASS; "235 

Specialists, their views, 
ny 278 

Species, transmutation of, 282, 286, 

6 


Spencer, Herbert, 114, 292, 293, 
300 


Stade, 45, 64, 84 

Subjective and preconceived theo- 
Sage 52, 63, 65, 109, 123, 126, 
1 

Sweet, Louis Matthews, 132, 234, 
335, 337 

Symbolism, 117, 120-122 


Tasoo, 67, 72 

Tennyson, Alfred, 328, 329 

Testimony, its value, 14.15 

Theism, 119, 262, 263, 277-280, 
282, 289, 300, "303, 306, 332 ; 
works on, 277, 278, 282, 332 

Theistic evolution, 289, 300-303 

Theology an empirical science, 129- 
134 


Thomas J., 132, 234, 


divine and hu- 


264-270, 


Thorburn, 

Tiamat, 85 

Tisdall, W. St. Clair, 56, 337 

Townsend, L. T., 294- 297, 337, 342, 
344 

Torrey, R. A., 42, 169, 337, 340 


INDEX 


Trench, 50 

Trinity, the Holy, 
309-312, 316, 327, 

Troelstra, A., 89, 340 

Truth, 106, 114, LG) hss. LOU, 
232’: needs defending, 138- 17 

Tuck, Robert, 42, 79, 

Tyndal, John, 114, 325 

Type, reversion of, 58, 59, 284, 
Se stability of, 283-290, 306, 

Types and symbols, 70-73 


UNITY OF THEH Biss, 62, 86-90, 
103, 137, 197, 240 

Urquhart, John, 38, 45, 78, 110, 
111, 117, 340, 346 

Uzzah, 67, 70-78, 78 


VALENTINE, MiuTon, 56 
Velocity, of corpuscles, 321, 322; 
of the earth, 314-317, 319, 327 


216, 243-245, 
343 


351 


Virgin birth, the, 182, 133, 234-239, 
241, 251, 258, 259, 306 

Volkmar, 56 

Voltaire, 48 


hist inhat BHNJAMIN B., 110, 340, 


Watson, F., 43, 110, 111, 115, 340 

Ways of the critics, 127-146 

Wellhausen, J., 30, 39, 45, 52, 64, 
ou 110, 127, 128, 138, 140, "172; 

Weltanschauung, 61, 

Wiener, Haraold M., a! 45, 110, 
111, 333, 340, 341 

Wilkinson, William ‘Cleaver, 203, 
204, 341 

Wilson, Robert Dick, 45, 110, 111, 
169, 220, 333, 340 

Wright, George Frederick, 38, 41, 
125, 232, 335, 342 


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